The most deftly handled and exciting one yet.

Rating: 8/10 (18 October 2007)

There's a moment in the latest Potter instalment that makes you feel really old. It's a flashback from the very first film of a minuscule, bowl-haired Daniel Radcliffe staring into a mirror. It's hard to imagine that charming young moppet strutting around a Westend stage in the buff or flicking condoms at Diana Rigg on BBC comedy Extras. It's enough to make you say with a sigh: "my hasn't he grown?" Yes it seems hardly yesterday that Warner Bros.' fantasy franchise first obliterated box office records with Harry Potter and the Philosophers Stone, way back in 2001. Six years, five films and millions of dollars later Warner Bros.' star pupil is still on a roll, but things have changed slightly. Clearly it's true what they say, time flies when you're having fun.
While the Potter films have been getting better for years, growing along with their audience, Order of the Phoenix would appear to be the first genuinely cinematic offering. Sure Mike Newell upped the scale to impressive effect with Goblet of Fire, but as a result the British boarding school familiarity that's so much a part of Potter's charm was lost in the din. It would appear that David Yates, the fourth director to take on the challenge, is the first that confidently tackles the text and successfully blends all its elements. Seemly unconcerned by his unwieldy source material (at a monstrous seven hundred and sixty six pages it's the most rambling of Rowling's series) Yates and scribe Michael Goldenberg effectively hone in on the central threads of the book and cast off the baggage. After all, do we really need to dwell on Harry's career advice and exam revision sessions? The result is a slick, stunning and often downright spectacular fantasy treat, grand but still with its feet planted firmly on the ground. Unlike its predecessors, which often created the sense of a hurried flick through the novel's key chapters as a series of disconnected scenes, OOTP flows nicely, with several terrifically staged montages accompanied by a rousing score by new composer Nicholas Hooper. The most innovative of these moments are when we literally soar through a series of blaring propagandist newspaper headlines, rejuvenating that overused cliché and effectively propelling the narrative forward without losing the pace. The first Potter to really experiment with editing, the boy wizard's internal struggle with Voldermort is strikingly portrayed with dramatically spliced images and the occasional surrealist flair. But there's also plenty of time for laughs, provided largely by the sickly sweet new teacher Dolores Umbridge and the leering school caretaker Filch. As the pink-wearing, kitten-loving, well spoken Umbridge, Imelda Staunton has created the most loathsome Rowling creature we've come across so far, topping even Fienne's histrionically 'eeevil' He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named. A deliciously toxic combination of Vera Drake and Nurse Ratched from One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest, Umbridge defines the 'wolf in sheep's clothing', embodying those most terrifying of women who disguise malevolence with middle-class manners. Also joining a cast that will surely include every notable British thesp before long (I'm holding out for an appearance by Bill Nighy, surely an essential addition to the rogues gallery) Bonham Carter does a great job with limited screen time as cackling lunatic Bellatrix Lestrange. The regular kids hold up well, although Watson's Hermione is still too god-damned earnest, and newcomer Evanna Lynch is ethereal perfection as the kooky Luna Lovegood. Meanwhile, Gary Oldman, David Thewlis and Brendan Gleeson make welcome returns to take control of the drama as the Order, lending some deftly handled gravitas to the affair. Now most of the players are introduced and Rowling's world is well established it's time to roll up robe sleeves and cut loose. A frenzied penultimate magical skirmish in which the members of the Order go head to head with Voldermort's Deatheaters finally propels Potter from fun kiddie romp into an adult world of real peril and violence. Coupling awesome effects with a breathtaking, adrenaline-fuelled pace, we're not left wanting. And that's even before the Voldermort vs Dumbledore finale: a vicious, super-scaled, explosive showstopper easily deserving a place alongside fantasy cinema's greatest stand-offs.
Despite all these improvements and triumphs, Phoenix, like its predecessors, remains a companion to its literary counterpart rather than a film in its own right. Warner Bros. having denied themselves the perspective afforded other filmmakers who are able to observe the overview of a completed literary series before adapting it, there's now also some inevitable groping around in the dark. With the retrospect now afforded us with the release of Rowling' seventh and final novel we notice some small omissions in OOTP which, though not immediately necessary, might prove problematic later on. Unless she's deliberately trying to sabotage these adaptations, you'd assume Rowling would have thought to point these things out. Furthermore, whilst the variety of directors has lent the franchise new perspectives, it's also affected the continuity from film to film. Newell's decision to end his GOF on an oddly upbeat note instead of a foreboding cliff-hanger could lead to some confusion at the start of OOTP which returns to a decidedly traumatised boy-who-lived. But at least through some neat flashbacks there's now some attempt to draw things together, and with the news that Yates is signed on for Potter number six, these transitional hiccoughs will surely be a thing of the past. Roll on Half-Blood Prince.