‘Harry Potter And The Order Of The Pheonix’
The fifth installment, ‘Harry Potter and the Order of the Pheonix’ has arrived to the big screen and was met with excitement from hundreds of fans. But were those fans satisfied with everything in the movie? It is true that this movie is even darker then the previous, ‘Goblet of Fire’, but the main concern is the content and the way it was placed in the movie.
Many fans were happy to see that two new important character, Professor Umbridge(Imelda Staunton) and Luna Lovegood(Evanna Lynch) were portrayed perfectly in the movie. Professor Umbridge takes the somewhat cursed job as Defense Against the Dark Arts and proceeds to try to takeover the school and the lives of the children. Trying to weed out anyone who thinks that Lord Voldemort is indeed alive.
Yet, even though there were parts that seemed like they were pulled directly from the movie, the movie itself did not seem as powerful as it could have been. Those who have read the book will see the discrepancies. Those who haven’t will enjoy it I am sure, not knowing what they are missing. It is agreed by many that the movie was rushed and the parts that were supposed to be the highlight of the movie seemed almost…well anti-climatic.
of course that doesn’t mean that the whole movie was bad or that the acting was horrible. Though some of the large-scale effects settle for the familiar, the young actors guiding the ongoing J.K. Rowling magic act keep our human interest. We have watched these young actors grow up on-screen, and somewhere along the way Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson and Rupert Grint, Harry, Hermione and Ron to millions, turned into increasingly assured, slightly older young actors.
Directed by Potter newcomer David Yates, whose résumé includes the piquant HBO romance “The Girl in the Cafe,” “Order of the Phoenix” cares little about bringing newcomers up to speed. Nor is the film trying to be the biggest dog on the block. Rowling’s story line nearly destroys Harry by subjecting him to a fate worse than Voldemort: teen angst.
Harry describes himself as “so angry, all the time,” miserable at home, fighting against his darker impulses, struggling to act on his better instincts. Thanks to Daniel Radcliffe, who turns 18 later this month and seems ready for a hardy career once all seven Potter books have been filmed, our hero’s “Look Back in Anger” phase carries genuine feeling.
Rowling’s owlishly charismatic hero is returning to Hogwarts for his fifth year. Straight off he’s nearly expelled for “underage sorcery” while on Muggle turf, brought on by an attack of two soul-sucking Dementors working for the other side. Headmaster Dumbledore helps sort it out and gets Harry off the hook, but Hogwarts quickly enters a dubious new phase under the stewardship of Prof. Umbridge, who has no patience with non-traditional curriculum and implements a “Ministry-approved” set of rules and regulations. The title refers to the shadowy Order of the Phoenix, in which Harry’s godfather Sirius Black is a member and whose collective eye is on Voldemort’s inevitable return.
The Potter series has been a reliable employer of half the character actors in England, and one of the chief assets here is Imelda Staunton as Umbridge. Her manner of evil, officious efficiency dressed in various shades of pink, reminds audiences there is more than one way to get a laugh while striking a threatening chord. Forced into action, Harry and his pals Hermione and Ron recruit their classmates to join them in “Dumbledore’s Army,” training for a showdown with Voldemort and his slithery allies including Helena Bonham Carter, whom no one can accuse of underplaying.
Oddly the action climax can be accused of underplaying. The wand-zapping battle is a climax in name only; this is the sequence, about 20 minutes in length, that is being shown in 3-D at IMAX theaters. I suspect 3-D will help. Working from Michael Goldenberg’s screenplay, director Yates is more at home with scenes depending on a subtler interweave of live-action and digital concerns.
It’s clear by now that Radcliffe, Watson and Grint were terrific casting choices, though this time Grint has little to do. The same is true for various Hogwarts faculty members played by Emma Thompson, Maggie Smith and Alan Rickman. That’s the way it goes with a series such as this one: New characters come along, crowding the old ones, and something has to give. The shortest of the five Potter films so far, “Order of the Phoenix” is destined to be remembered as the one that handed the screen Harry his first kiss. Like much of the film, the smooch comes and goes briskly, without a lot of fuss.