Harry Potter & the Order of the Phoenix (film)

I went to see the latest Harry Potter film today at the cinema... sad... I know! Having not read the books (hiss hiss) I have only ever watched the films so it would be great to have comments from others who have read the book and seen the film for comparison.

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix is a fantasy adventure film, based on the novel by J. K. Rowling. Directed by David Yates, it is the fifth film in the popular Harry Potter film series. The story follows Harry Potter entering his fifth year at the magic school Hogwarts. The Ministry of Magic is denying the return of Lord Voldemort and also appoints a new teacher, Dolores Umbridge, a bureaucrat who slowly becomes an authoritarian figure in the school.

The screenplay was written by Michael Goldenberg, who replaced Steve Kloves, writer of the first four films. Live action filming started in February 2006 and finished in the end of November, and post-production on the film continued for several months afterwards.

I found the visual effects in this film the most stunning (from what I can remember) of all five films.

Tim Burke was the visual effects supervisor, John Richardson was the special effects supervisor, and Nick Dudman was the creatures special effects supervisor. The film required over 1,400 visual effects shots, and the London-based company Double Negative created more than 950 of them. Working for six months on previsualization starting in September 2005, Double Negative was largely responsible for sequences in the Room of Requirement, the Forbidden Forest, the Hall of Prophecies, and the Death Chamber.

A new character in the film, Grawp, Hagrid's giant half-brother, came to life by a new technology called Soul Capturing, developed by Image Metrics. Instead of building the character from scratch, the movements and facial expressions of actor Tony Maudsley were used to model Grawp's actions.

Double Negative have also produced special effects for The Bourne Ultimatum which I have also been to see recently... so I have included the website underneath.

Overall, the film was entertaining and I was biting my bottom lip in parts, but the storyline didn't seem as strong as the others... it was almost a little monotonous at times. I also felt like there was a bit of an anticlimax and the main part of the story seemed to be squashed into a relatively small amount of screen time. As always, the scenery and internal shots were fantastic. There was also some edgy film shots in parts of the film... to give a sense of being there.



http://www.dneg.com/
http://www.harrypotterorderofthephoenix.com/

Bourne Ultimatum (film)

I went to see the Bourne Ultimatum film on it's opening night (Wednesday) and I would recommend anybody to go and see it. It definately helped that I had watched the first two but it's a great film in it's own right. Trilogies are usual flops but this is edgy, dramatic and well paced which keeps you on the edge of your seat the whole way through. It's intelligent so you're thinking and watching at the same time and the action shots are fantastic.

The camera shakes quite a lot which captures the mood of the film and makes you feel like you are there, watching his every move. The talent in the film is on another level - they are their characters which makes the storyline more believable. The action scenes are so brutally fast-paced and well choreographed that they seem instinctive instead of planned to the minutest movement; the stunt-work is nothing short of amazing.

The pacing is just incredible and there's never a moment when you feel like you don't want to keep watching. It keeps driving forward towards its conclusion, but not so fast that it leaves you struggling to piece together the plot. It's really focused and the script delivers the information you need as quickly and clearly as possible before moving on to the next tense action scene.

This is the best cinema film I've watched all year!

http://www.thebourneultimatum.com/