Arguably The Weakest Harry Potter Film.

Rating: Null/10 (22 July 2014)

After the truly magical Prisoner of Azkaban & darkly fascinating Goblet of Fire, Harry Potter & the Order of the Phoenix arrives as the fifth instalment in the 8-film series based on the novels by J.K. Rowling. And while its source material was the longest in the series, the movie is surprisingly short. And not just that, the film in itself is a major step down as the narration & presentation never really clicked this time.
Order of the Phoenix covers Harry Potter's 5th year at Hogwarts where he finds himself rebuffed by most as they refuse to believe his or Dumbledore's account that Lord Voldemort has returned. With the Ministry plotting to keep things under the table & assigning one of their own into Hogwarts' staff, Harry experiences one of his toughest years at the school while The Dark Lord desperately covets a secret weapon he didn't have the last time.
For a while in the Harry Potter franchise, the director's chair seemed just as jinxed as the Defence Against the Dark Arts post for we have David Yates taking over that role from Mike Newell. And Yates direction turns out to be really out of place as the film neither has the darkness nor the excitement of its predecessors. The screenplay leaves out exceptional amount of detail from the story & what's adapted isn't transitioned properly on the silver screen.
The technical aspects are a step down as well in comparison to the previous two chapters, at least. It looks remarkably average in every department, except the performances which I will talk about next. And even the score by Nicholas Hooper doesn't manage to evoke any sort of feeling. Still there are few moments that's well captured & captivating but for the majority of its runtime, Order of the Phoenix remains very stale & adds nothing special to the franchise.
As for the performances, the recurring cast has put their strong foot forward while the new additions are simply amazing. From the recurring cast, Ralph Fiennes (Lord Voldemort), Michael Gambon (Albus Dumbledore), Alan Rickman (Severus Snape) & Gary Oldman (Sirius Black) are the standouts. Amongst the new cast, Evanna Lynch is bloody perfect as Luna Lovegood & so is Helena Bonham Carter as Bellatrix Lestrange. And Imelda Staunton as Dolores Umbridge manages to make viewers hate her quite effortlessly.
On an overall scale, Harry Potter & the Order of the Phoenix has moments of highs & lows and manages to entertain in bits n pieces but it still feels highly inferior when compared to how much the last two sequels contributed to the saga. It was headed for a disaster but manages to correct itself by some extent during its third act. What I love most about it is obviously Luna & Bellatrix and if only the story was as intriguing as these two characters, then Order of the Phoenix today would've been hailed as the series' finest. Unfortunately, it's arguably the weakest.