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Movie Review: Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
'Order of the Phoenix' strongest film yet
By John Wirt
jwirt@theadvocate.com
Advocate movie critic
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PLAY OFFICIAL TRAILER
out of 4 stars.
The emotional and physical knocks of childhood and adolescence have always been exaggerated for that famously orphaned young wizard, Harry Potter.
His nightmares and the genuine peril that always find him continue in the especially absorbing Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. It’s the fifth movie produced from J.K. Rowling’s seven Potter novels.
The relatively light fun of early films mostly dissipates in Order of the Phoenix, the series’ darkest episode yet. On the verge of adulthood, Harry is surrounded by plots and threats. No time for games, not even a high-flying quidditch match.
Spending another awful summer away from Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry with the Dursleys, the abusive Muggle family he’s been saddled with for years, Harry misses schoolmates Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger.
Life goes from bad to worse when a pair of deathly Dementors attacks Harry and the Dursleys’ son, Dudley. Harry repels the assault with his best defense, the powerful Patronus charm. His reward is expulsion from Hogwarts for the crime of performing magic in the presence of a Muggle.
These are strange times in the magic world. Minister of Magic Cornelius Fudge is waging a campaign of misinformation and denial.
Harry, having battled Lord Voldemort and witnessed the Dark Lord’s return, is in the middle of it all. Fudge seems intent upon ruining this well-meaning boy’s reputation. The apparently misinformed, or intentionally wrong, minister stages a ridiculous trial in which Harry is the defendant.
The expression of actor Daniel Radcliffe, who returns as Harry, veers narrowly from intense to anxious. He sweats and twitches during nightmares and some particularly unpleasant one-on-one instruction from the ever-grim Professor Snape.
But there are some bright moments in Order of the Phoenix. Radcliffe and the film reach spiriting-raising cadences when the passionate Harry uses his gift for magic to help fellow students defend themselves against approaching evil.
Dementors and Fudge’s smear campaign are warm-ups for towering new challenges for Harry and Hogwarts. Misguided practices at the school itself may be the most dangerous hazard. Much of Order of the Phoenix details the destructive activities of new Hogwarts faculty member Dolores Umbridge. Playing this controlling beast of a woman, the dressed-in-pink Imelda Staunton definitely earns the dislike of characters and audience alike. She’s Mussolini in drag. And how clever of Rowling to make this great villain an enemy from within.
Subsequent battles involving old and new enemies — including recent Azkaban prison escapee Bellatrix Lestrange (Helena Bonham Carter making her wicked Potter movie debut) — unleash mighty displays of special effects. It’s cinema wizardry appropriately rendered in the service of a classic good vs. evil struggle.
All of which makes Order of the Phoenix the strongest Potter movie yet.
