I think FroHam agrees as well, though he's more enamored by Dumbledore v. Voldemort and I think the entire sequence should get credited, starting with the hello to Jason Isaacs
Did you even read my review, or did you just skim it?
The true excitement, though, comes during the film's climax. The battle in the Hall of Prophesies is a visual and aural tour de force. Spells whizz and crack by with stunning energy, and it all has the feel of an awesome gunfight played out in a fantastical setting and with fantastical guns. At one point during the chase through the endless shelves of prophecies, Ginny Weasley casts a spell so powerful it causes practically the entire room to explode and all the shelves to being falling like dominos. It's a moment so effectively delivered that even watching it again it took my breath away.
Then the action shifts to a setting not unlike a dark cave. The kids are cornered, but suddenly the Order of the Phoenix arrives in drops of bright white smoke. The fight moves into a whole new realm of awesome. Spells are cast back and forth so effortlessly that at some points they feel like carefully choreographed sword fights. And almost as quickly as it all began, it all comes to a screeching halt. Sirius is killed and the moment is painfully drawn out. Harry chases a maniacal Bellatrix LeStrange down the main corridor of the Ministry and there he comes face to face with Voldemort himself.
Before anything seriously dangerous can happen, Dumbledore shows up. And if the previous bit of action between the Order and the Death Eaters was awesome, the sequence that follows it is insanely badass. I simply have no better way to describe it. The force of magic used is epic in a way that we have not yet experienced in the series. What was previously a sword fight has become a majestic dance. Huge spells fly back and forth and are manipulated and sent back out into the room. There are no verbal spells, no talking it's all left to the amazing cinematography, effects, and most of all the sound effects. The sound in this scene is some of the best sound work I have ever heard. Each spell radiates and envelops the rooms. One spell involving a sphere of water sounds dense and heavy, and then another, in which a spell is condensed into nothingness and silence and then blasts outward causing glass to shatter and fly everywhere is mindblowing. This is easily the best climactic sequence in the series so far. I would imagine only Deathly Hallows Part 2 could give it a run for its money, but even that grand finale would have a hard time topping what Yates did here.
I praised the whole damn thing. All three sections of it. I simply claim that the best part of the climax is its climax.
And while I agree that the action scenes in 6 and 7a are not nearly as good as the end of 5, I still think they are very well crafted. I mean I even said in my review that it would be hard to match the heights of that action sequence in any of the following films. The action scenes in 7a are not made to be especially showy. This is done on purpose. You don't want to see the characters take part in big triumphant battle scenes in this movie where thematically the film is dealing with these characters at their darkest point, on their own, wandering in circles and unlikely to succeed at their task.
The opening chase scene is fine as a chase scene, but it is more marked by its nature as kind of a standard car chase, only through the air. The scene actually comes most alive in the moments of loss. When they burst through the cloud and you see tons of death eaters flying around, or when Voldemort gets pissed and electrical towers around him get destroyed.
There is the stuff in the house, which is meant to play out more like a small-scale horror film, and trust me it works. Every audience I've seen the movie with has let out a collective sigh of relief when they fly out the window. And even the chase through the Ministry halls at the end of that great sequence is tense and exciting. I love that bit with the paper flying at Yaxley, and I love the way it's all staged with Yaxley walking all intense and Michael Myers-like and slowly breaking into an angry run. The destruction at the Lovegood house is all just a ton of stuff bursting and flying all over the place, same with the wedding attack, but that's how those scenes are meant to play, and I still never lost my sense of space in them.
The only action scene that is really disorienting is that quick chase in the woods near the end. And even then it has that cool Private Ryan look and I love the way Yates cuts out the music and focuses on the sound effects. Speaking of which, the small duel in the cafe is played with just dialogue and sound effects and it works brilliantly.
Either way, I disagree that the action scenes are problematic. They may not have the amazing energy of the scene at the end of 5, but in general they are shorter, less grand. If you want crazy action I have a feeling the Gringotts sequence in 7b will be pretty awesome.