Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, the fifth entry in the series, arrives in movie theaters just ten days before the seventh and last book, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, hits bookstores. Having read or seen the previous four novels or films is necessary to understand how Harry Potter's previous experiences, including conflict with the resurrected Lord Voldemort, have shaped and prepared him for the final battle to defeat Voldemort. That final confrontation, however, will have to wait for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Moviegoers, however, will have to wait a year and a half for sixth film, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (slated for a November 2008 release), and possibly three years for the seventh and final chapter in the Potter franchise to reach theaters.
Harry Potter (Daniel Radcliffe), still recovering from the death of classmate Cedric Diggory (Robert Pattinson) at the end of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, is, as usual, stuck living with his only surviving relatives, the unmagical Dursleys, Petunia (Fiona Shaw), Vernon (Richard Griffiths), and his obnoxious, spoiled, bullying cousin, Dudley (Harry Melling). After the latest in a seemingly endless series of confrontations with Dudley and Dudley’s posse, Dementors, wraith-like soul-suckers that guard the wizarding world’s magical prison, Azkaban, appear from the sky and attack Harry and Dudley. Harry’s use of magic, off school grounds and in front of a non-wizard, leads to expulsion from Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry pending an administrative hearing at the Ministry of Magic. Luckily, Harry’s mentor and friend, Professor/Headmaster Albus Dumbledore (Michael Gambon) intercedes on his behalf and Harry wins reinstatement to Hogwarts.
Still tortured by Cedric’s death, even Harry’s friends, Ron Weasley (Rupert Grint) and Hermione Granger (Emma Watson), offer him no solace. It doesn’t help that the Minister of Magic, Cornelius Fudge (Robert Hardy) disbelieves Harry’s story about the Lord Voldemort’s (Ralph Fiennes) return and insists on a Ministry of Magic authoritarian-minded loyalist, Dolores Umbridge (Imelda Staunton), as the new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher. Umbridge doesn’t so much teach Defense Against the Dark Arts as preach. Concerned about their lack of training for the upcoming battle with Lord Voldemort and his army of so-called Death-Eaters, Harry, Ron, and Hermione decide first to seek help from the increasingly distant Dumbledore Harry’s godfather and escaped convict, Sirius Black (Gary Oldman). The Order of the Phoenix is a super-secret, Ministry of Magic unapproved society dedicated to defeating Lord Voldemort.
Unfortunately, the Order of the Phoenix decide to shut Harry, Ron, and Hermione out, forcing him to create a non-sanctioned anti-Voldemort group made up of his classmates, “Dumbledore’s Army,” away from Dumbridge’s prying eyes or roaming spies. A newly reinvigorated Harry leads lessons while a conflicted, but no less interested classmate, Cho Chang (Katie Leung), looks on. Invigorated or not, Harry’s nightmares get worse. Apparently, Harry and Voldemort share a telepathic bond, a bond that threatens to put Harry and his friends in harm’s way. Harry also learns that Voldemort seeks a magical object of some kind from the Ministry of Magic’s Department of Mysteries. To make matters worse, Voldemort has orchestrated the escape of several of his followers from Azkaban, including Bellatrix Lestrange (Helena Bonham Carter), Sirius’ deranged cousin. Harry’s least favorite potions instructor, Severus Snape (Alan Rickman), is also on hand to cause him minor grief and teach him how to fight off telepathic attacks.
Like its predecessors, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix has a lot of ground to cover in its 138-minute running time. By necessity, the convoluted plot moves rapidly, establishing and reestablishing characters conflicts, reminding moviegoers of key events and information from the previous films, getting new story elements going (e.g., the Ministry of Magic’s takeover of Hogwarts) while advancing the Voldemort storyline just enough to satisfy moviegoers without definitively resolving the central conflict. Plus, Harry’s tortured and introspective, so Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix has to pause on occasion to let him meditate on his losses. That’s asking a lot of any film, let alone the fifth entry in a seven-film franchise, but screenwriter (Peter Pan, Contact, Bed of Roses) working, of course, from J.K. Rowling’s novel, and David Yates (The Girl in the Café, Sex Traffic, The Young Visiters, Rank) manage to pull it off (well, mostly).
Not surprisingly, characters were dropped, subplots pruned or eliminated, and scenes otherwise in the novel were deleted for the adaptation to keep Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix’s running time at less than two-and-a-half hours. That might not sit well with readers hoping to see a particular character or scene on screen, but for the most part, it’s a commendable decision, as anyone who’s seen the first and second films can readily attest. If anything, the problems here are little different than those found in earlier entries, breathless pacing crammed full of blink-or-you’ll-miss-it exposition, unsatisfying subplots (e.g., the Harry-Cho Chang romance), wand-waving battles that tend toward the dramatically inert, and a climax that leaves the heavy wand fighting to Dumbledore and not Harry.
On the plus side, Yates, a television and mini-series director with no experience helming a big-budget feature film, does commendably in handling elaborate action pieces (an obvious concern for critics and fans) and the smaller intimate moments driven by character and dialogue. Like Alfonso Cuarón and Mike Newell before him, Yates elicits strong performance from the leads, Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint, and Emma Watson, but he also does well with the ever-growing supporting cast, a mix of teenage actors and stage-trained thespians. As the ideologically driven, authoritarian, perpetually smiling Dolores Umbridge, Imelda Staunton steals every scene she’s in. Staunton keeps her performance from getting too broad, but creates a scarily realistic villain, an undaunted, inflexible rule-bound bureaucrat convinced of the utter rightness of her convictions and the need for absolute loyalty toward her superiors in the Ministry of Magic.
If Dolores Umbridge is starting to sound like a critique of a certain mindset that’s infiltrated both the United States and the United Kingdom, it’s probably not coincidental. J.K. Rowling has never shied away from depicting sympathetic outsider characters and her disdain for fear-mongering and the manipulation thereof, plus, of course, the bureaucratic mentality has always been present in the Harry Potter novels. It’s just more obvious in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. That might sound a little heavy for what’s presumably lightweight escapist entertainment. Maybe. Maybe not. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix isn’t likely to disappoint Harry Potter’s legions of fans, but for non-fans, it’ll just as likely to feel inconclusive (it is, of course) or frustratingly opaque (a short trip to the local library will help resolve that issue). Whatever else can be said about Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, Potter fatigue hasn’t set in yet and that bodes well for the last two films in the series.
© Mel Valentin, 11th July, 2007
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