Harry Potter: Order of The Phoenix
December 12, 2007
Rated: PG-13 Runtime: 138 min Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
In the 5th story of what promises to be 7 movies total, Harry (Radcliffe) is now in his 5th year at the Hogwarts School and he is bitter and angry for all of the nastiness that has happened to him over the past 5 years. No one believes him when he says the Dark Lord has returned, and the one person he needs desperately to stand by him, Professor Dumbledore acts as though he no longer exists. To back up a bit, early in the story Harry is expelled temporarily and is forced to go through a trial of sorts to prove his innocence to be cleared of charges so he can return to school. The Minister of Magic and his followers want Harry gone as they believe he’s lying about the return of Voldemort and he is leading a coup at the school to replace him with Dumbeldore. This theory gains even more ground by the fact that Dumbeldore is the one fighting to get Harry back in which makes Fudge all the more suspicious, so he sends someone to look over things on his behalf.
Enter the real villain in this movie, Dolores Umbridge (Staunton), the new Defense against the Dark Arts teacher. If you’ve read the books she is exactly as you would imagine she’d be and the creepiness she oozes is amazing. Umbridge believes the kids only need to learn what the spells are, they don’t need to learn them because there’s no reason to defend against the dark arts because there is no Dark side to defend against, it’s all in Harry’s imagination. This leads to the creation of a club calling themselves Dumbledore’s Army and Harry takes it upon himself to train the students at Hogwarts. While the kids are working away at planning their own strategy Voldemort is gathering his troops as well by breaking certain prisoners out Azkaban (Wizard prison for those of you that are lost), such as Sirius Black’s (Oldman) cousin Bellatrix Lestrange (Carter) and a few other murderer’s and psycho’s, to find a prophecy and destroy the Order of The Phoenix so he can finish Harry once and for all.
The Order of The Phoenix is much like the rest, in the sense that Harry is thrown into impossible situations and has to find a way out but this time he does it as an angsty 15 year old teenager, which darkens the tone of this one beyond that of the last film, and I would guess it’s just gonna get darker as we go. But on a side note, When George Lucas wrote the Phantom Menace he said the plan was to show the audience what it was like to see Jedi’s in their prime do battle, well let’s just say the duel at the end of this one although not quite as cool, is along the same lines. Dumbledore’s got game!
New director, new composer for the music and a ‘different’ Harry Potter made for a very good sequel to an already inflated theme. David Yates chose to go with a combination of Alphonso Cuaron and Mike Newell’s styles by letting the kids flex their acting muscle while at the same time staying true to the character’s, as they were written in the book so I enjoyed the movie and so did the audience I saw it with. If you’re a fan of the series, you’re gonna go regardless of what I say and if you’re on the fence give it a chance, it’s worth the cash.
Seen it? How many stars do you give it?
(4 votes, average: 3.75 out of 5)
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Just watched this on HD-DVD and I have to agree with the 4 star rating. At points the movie is completely enthralling, but sometimes it makes story transitions that are hard to follow and it can be distracting trying to figure out what just happened. Not a serious problem, and I guess it’s to be expected when a movie tries to condense a ton of material into a couple hours.
Picture quality is amazing as you’d expect on HD-DVD. The creature effects.. very nice. I did notice in a few scenes that the black borders would pulse a bit from black to grey, almost like the old Macrovision copy protection crap. Maybe it was just my player.
There’s a ton of extras on the disc too, a making of type thing for most of the special effects, some deleted scenes, and a few other goodies.
If you’re a fan of the series this is a must buy, and it’s a must see if you know the story at all. If you haven’t seen the previous movies, don’t bother as you’ll be totally lost the entire time.