Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (Movie Review)

I'm not what you'd call a "Harry Potter Fan". I've read three of the books now, because my sister is a nut for Harry Potter and has somehow cornered me into developing a mild interest in the books. The first 3 movies did nothing for me, although I'll eventually buy all of them on DVD as a more tolerable alternative to "Shark Boy and Lava Girl" for our future kids.

I generally don't enjoy stories where adults are idiots and children are the only ones empowered to save the day. Don't get me wrong, I LOVED those kinds of stories when I was a kid, but as an adult they don't fly with me.
However, as the characters in the books and actors in the films have gotten a little older, I've been able to enjoy the stories a little more each time. It also helps that each book seems to get a little darker than the one before it.
At the end of "Goblet of Fire", we were finally treated to a wizarding duel where the threat of death was obvious. It was wonderful, but all too short. Now, finally, in "Order of the Phoenix", we see a ton of great wizard dueling in the last 20 minutes of the film. Like the famous "Yoda v. Dooku" fight in Episode 2, the battles near the end of "Phoenix" make the ticket worth buying.
As for the rest of the film, it is the shortest of the movies despite coming from the longest yet of the books. This is seen through the choice of quick cuts and short scenes that ask the audience to infer many minor details instead of taking us through them all with the actors. A montage sequence is effectively used to cover Dolores Umbridge's "survey" of the Hogwarts staff.
A few sequences and minor character introductions seem off the beaten path of the main plot even more so than they did in the book (The "pet" Giant and the Centaurs being two that come to mind.), although these are probably present as set-up for the next book/film. (I haven't read Half-blood Prince yet.)
The actor cast as Luna Lovegood didn't sell me on her performance right away. But after a few minutes when I realized that spacey "drugged" look that's always on her face was an expression of her character (and not the sign of a really poor actress), I really enjoyed her performance for the remainder of the film.
All in all, I'd say it's the best Harry Potter film so far. A solid flick, though nothing more. Mainly because after the fantastic action at the end I found myself wondering why they couldn't get to stuff this great much earlier in the film.
Rated PG-13 for sequences of fantasy violence and frightening images
Quality: 8.0/10
Relevance: 6.5/10