Harry Potter
and the Order of the Phoenix

Rated: PG-13
Runtime: 2 hours, 18 minutes
Directed by: David Yates

Starring:
Daniel Radcliffe - Harry Potter
Emma Watson - Hermione Granger
Rupert Grint - Ron Weasley
Imelda Staunton - Dolores Umbridge
Gary Oldman - Sirius Black
Evanna Lynch - Luna Lovegood
Matthew Lewis - Neville Longbottom
Katie Leung - Cho Chang
Maggie Smith - Minerva McGonagall
Michael Gambon - Albus Dumbledore
Alan Rickman - Severus Snape
Ralph Fiennes - Lord Voldemort

How do you make a Harry Potter film? More specifically, how do you turn the 896 page behemoth of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, with its darker tones and greater attention to character development than mystery-solving and make it into one movie that has to appeal to an audience of various ages and affections? Ask David Yates because he’s done it in the best installment of the Harry Potter film franchise to date.

From the film’s opening, Yates nails the depression and anger that haunts Harry after his first showdown with Lord Voldemort has left him with an unfortunate mix of post-traumatic-stress disorder and everyday adolescent fury. But while Alfonso Cuaron’s Prisoner of Azkaban also had a unique style, it was at times too overbearing (the iris-transitions and final freeze frame almost kick you out of the film) whereas Yates’ direction feels totally natural and in sync with the film’s tone. He weaves the darker emotional overtones of Harry, forced to understand his own morality and need for friendship when it seems like the world is against him, alongside the political repression undertones of Dolores Umbridge (Vera Drake’s Imelda Staunton perfectly playing a villain some fans consider more evil than Voldemort due to the authenticity of her menace) and her tenure at Hogwarts.

To compress the story and quickly demonstrate character development, the film has to make use of montages and while this tried-and-true editing technique usually grates on me, here it works wonderfully as it not only shows development but manages to showcase some much needed moments of levity into the otherwise weighty proceedings. The speed at which the film moves sometimes eclipses some character introductions that will probably befuddle those who can’t instantly spot Nymphadora Tonks or Arabella Figg and while it probably wouldn’t have harmed the film to have a few more minutes of screen time for some characters (especially Tonks), the payoff is an urgency which gives the film constant energy.

There are a few elements which keep this from being a perfect Potter picture: Fred and George Weasley's flight from Hogwarts (one of my favorite moments in the entire series) doesn’t showcase as much imagination as I’d hoped as the magical mischief in their escape consists mostly of fireworks. Furthermore, for a film that ends with such darkness, it seems like someone has forced an upbeat ending and I doubt it’s Yates because the previous film, Goblet of Fire, required a heavier ending but ended with sunshine and rainbows.

But these are minor complaints in a film that managed to take almost everything wonderful about the book and create more onscreen magic than any of the previous four installments. It will be a long eighteen months to see what magic Yates can weave with the next film, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.

Words by
Matt Goldberg
7.14.07

Rating: 9.2 out of 10