Mildly Enjoyed Harry Potter?

I've gone to see all of the Harry Potter movies and always walked away from the shows not disappointed but not overly impressed either.

I expected as much when I went to see Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. To my surprise I was extremely impressed with this last offering in the series. It was a bit more adult oriented and was more bent on impressing the audience with plot and story line rather than merely Special Effects.

Don't get me wrong, I think the Harry Potter series has always had very imaginative Special Effects. They saved the previous movies for me personally. Although the Harry Potter magical effects were great the movies were never did much more for me other than wondering "How'd they do that... Blue Screen? Did George Lucas help with that?" Yes, strangely enough thoughts like that go through my sometimes too over analyzing mind at times -- Especially when I find myself watching a movie and getting bored.

I always felt awkward when my wife and little girl would come out of the show saying how much they loved it while I could only say It was OK, which seemed to dampen the good mood we were in.

I remember saying to myself to make sure I was the first one to say "Wasn't that a great movie" -- Implying that I thought it was great too. To my surprise I was able to come away from this latest Harry Potter movie really ranking it as a good show. To my dismay my daughter thought Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix was a bit too scary.

After reflecting on it people did died in the show. There were evil monsters and evil people bent on killing one another. I guess I didn't expect it to come across so strongly in a kid's show and what I took as enjoyment, my daughter seemed to have only mildly enjoyed the show. She didn't have nightmares or anything like that, but she didn't come home chirping about the movie for hours on end like she did with some other purely kids movies.

Harry Potter is growing up, along with the kids movie theme. If you have been mildly interested in the made for kids' series before now I would suggest you take a look at Order of the Phoenix. It will keep your attention well beyond the special effects. But be forewarned, your kids may or may not like this movie as much as they liked the previous episodes. The only negative thing I have to say about this latest Harry Potter episode is that they left an important issue hanging. Harry Potter never apologized to this one kid and I thought that should have been a must. Still it was the best Harry Potter movie so far.