Web posted
July 12, 2007
Delving deep into the dark arts
"Order of the Phoenix" sets the table for finale
By Roger Moore
The Orlando Sentinel
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 Daniel Radcliffe, left, as Harry Potter and Katie Leung as Cho Chang star in "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix." |
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"Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix" is the darkest of the Harry Potter films, and the briefest.
But "Order of the Phoenix" is a murky movie in more ways than one, all dark conspiracies, torture, threats and long, long interludes of an increasingly angry Harry training his fellow wizards because Hogwarts is under new and malevolent management.
Where's the fun?
It feels for all the world like what it is: a table-setting for the last two Potter novels-into-films, pages turning into scenes that take us toward graduation or some other decisive conclusion.
British TV director David Yates (a cost-cutting measure?) begins wonderfully, setting us firmly in Harry's "real" world of the bullying (and still growing) cousin and a suburbia just remote enough to make a hormonal young wizard feel totally out of the loop.
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Movie Review
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
Rating: ★★★
Starring: Daniel Radcliffe, Alan Rickman, Helena Bonham Carter.
Directed by: David Yates.
Rated: PG-13.
Run time: 2 hours, 15 minutes.
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This Week's Question
Do you think the new "Harry Potter" movie is too mature for young viewers?
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Which he is. The Daily Prophet is tearing into him daily. Ministry of Magic forces are rallying against him. And he's having nightmares about the boy, Cedric Diggory, who died right in front of him in "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire."
Just then, he's expelled from Hogwarts. An inquisition clears him, but even so, nobody but headmaster Dumbledore (Michael Gambon) and his school chums Ron, Hermione and Neville believe that he has actually wrestled with Lord Voldemort (Ralph Fiennes).
"You know who" is on everybody's mind, now. The Ministry sends an officious martinet, played by Imelda Staunton as if she's auditioning for "The Queen II," to take over Dark Arts Defense at Hogwarts and see to it that nobody believes Harry when he cries that "You know who" is running amok.
So Harry runs his own version of that class on the sly. He knows a war is coming. A secret cabal, the Order of the Phoenix, with all the best and brightest teacher-wizards (including Sirius Black, nicely played by Gary Oldman), has warned him. Harry is teaching spells and wand-wielding, training the "good" wizard army to resist Voldemort, who has unleashed his minions.
If it weren't for the presence of Alan Rickman, curling his tongue around every syllable like the British Christopher Walken that he is, the movie would have gone an hour without a break in the glum mood. Rickman's funereal teacher, Snape, has the comic spark the movie lacks.
So, yes, we're set up for "Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince" and "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows." But there isn't enough Rickman or Brendan Gleeson (as the rowdy Mad Eye Moody) to make this "Phoenix" rise from the merely watchable (the curse of this summer's sequels) and take flight.
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