Solid entry into the Potter canon but no masterpiece

Rating: 6/10 (17 September 2007)

Given its long, sprawling, complex plot, The Order of the Phoenix has often been regarded as both the least enjoyable and the hardest to adapt on film of any of JK Rowling's Harry Potter series. Bearing this in mind, the producers' decision to eschew any established or safe film directors in favour of David Yates, a man whose career thus far rests on well regarded, serious political dramas on TV, is a bold but potentially disastrous choice as director.
So, does Yates pull it off? Well, yes and no. The Potter series' jumping from director to director makes for some interesting differences in style and quality and on the whole Yates comes off quite well against the competition. For a man stepping up from TV to film, Yates does an admirable job with some of the grander sequences and set pieces, especially the final confrontation in the Ministry of Magic, and there is certainly a serious. grown up undercurrent to events that was completely absent from the early bright, fluffy Christopher Columbus pictures. However, Yates equally does not manage to imbue his film with a real sense of magic and wonder, or the constant threat evident in Alfonso Cuaron's Prisoner of Azkaban, easily the finest of the series so far. While the only strong evidence that this is Potter from the man who brought you State of Play lies in the repeated montages of newspaper headlines and a plot strand concerning media campaigns and government spin, this is, in fact, a relatively minor part to the film.
Yates' film begins strongly, anchoring the sinister in the everyday as we see Harry in a very ordinary playground bullied by his unpleasant cousin and his cronies, things soon take a dark magical turn with the appearance of a soul sucking dementor in an underpass, so successfully threatening in Prisoner of Azkaban. Yates handles this with impressive disturbing effect, however it turns out to be the last time in the movie the audience really fear for the characters' safety. Back at Hogwart's, we are on fairly familiar ground and it is largely business as usual, even if the removal of another visually spectacular but rather tedious Quidditch game does provide a refreshing change. Rowling's plot is not focused enough on the threat of the returned dark lord Voldemort to give the plot any drive and seem like anything more than an episodic series of public school trials and tribulations.
Of course, this is where Yates is able to reveal his secret weapon, Imelda Staunton, perfectly cast as Dolores Umbridge, a nicely different type of villain, all twin sets, pink and china plates with cats, her cheery demeanour hides a chilling intensity of purpose and narrow mindedness. Staunton gives one of the best performances of any of the illustriously starry cast in the whole series as she inflicts her reign of moral repression on the school through a series of proclamations hung on every available space on the wall. Unfortunately, although her bullying of the pupils, reaching a height with a strong sequence in which Harry is punished by writing lines with a magic pen that cuts the words into his hand, is effective as it is only just removed from how ordinary people view their teachers anyway, she does not provide a major threat and is rather quickly brushed aside to make way for the climax of the plot.
Meanwhile, Staunton's performance means that the rest of the cast exist rather in her shadow, many of the big names showing up more through contractual obligation than a need to add anything to the plot. Alan Rickman as the sinister Snape remains underused, while Gary Oldman, no longer the fearsome and dangerous Prisoner of Azkaban, is stuck with a series of unimpressive sentimental moments and Helena Bonham Carter, as his witch relative Bellatrix Lestrange, another new addition to the cast, has barely anything to add. As for the young leads, Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson and Rupert Grint once again improve a little on the previous film whilst still not really giving three dimensional performances. Although Evanna Lynch provides an impressively odd turn as creepily not all there Luna Lovegood.
One actor that does make the best of limited screen time is Ralph Fiennes, back again as the evil Voldemort. Fiennes has a great presence in the movie, needing little more than a strange crook of the neck to appear a threat. Meanwhile, his cowled and masked Death Eaters are equally sinister. Once the movie finally arrives at its finale with Voldemort having lured Harry and friends to a vast hall of crystal balls in the Ministry and our heroes are attacked by the dark figures, the film finally gets going but it has spent a little too long in getting there. The finale is spectacular even though Oldman's final moments are just a little confusing and anti-climactic.
In all, Yates does a solid job of adapting this difficult book, cutting down the plot to a manageable length, although he is a little over-reliant on montage, and throwing in some big moments. He has shown enough to justify his return for film six, The Half Blood Prince, however he will have to prove himself capable then of providing more than a superficial film with a greater sense of peril. The Potter films have always been more impressive when viewed as a series, when the true achievement of this grand scheme is obvious and the familiarity of Hogwart's becomes part of the appeal, and Order of the Phoenix is one of the better films in the series, however on its own it is certainly no masterpiece. ***