Harry Potter Month - Mini Review: Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

Political changes are a particularly difficult thing to write about when writing a children’s story. All too often it’s the case of portraying one side as the heroes whilst the others the villains, like Amon and Kuvira in Korra. Suffice it to say this is my least favourite of the Harry Potter books, not to say it was bad, but I’ll explain what I mean in the review.

David Yates steps into the director’s chair for this film, he’ll be the director of all the remaining Harry Potter movies. And the daunting trial for this movie is that it’s the longest book of the series, ironically converted into the shortest movie (counting the 2 deathly hallows movies as one anyway)

Movie made $939.9m on a $150m budget, but appraisal was a tad more mixed with a 71% on rotten tomatoes.

The biggest problem with Order of the Phoenix is that it’s a story that just fills in the time while we wait for things to actually happen. In the grand scheme of things, very little actually happens in this story. Which is disappointing. What this movie does allow is a relatively entertaining exposition dump.

We get introduced to Doloris Umbridge (Imelda Stauton) who is perfectly cast because by the end of the movie you want to f*cking murder her character.

While we’re on introducing some characters, I’ve been largely ignoring the roles of certain important characters, particularly in this one Neville Longbottom (Matthew Lewis) and his character growth in this one is pretty impressive as he begins to improve his abilities whilst preparing to face the lady who tortured his parents to madness (didn’t Barty Crouch Jr do that, or was he just with them)

We also have Luna Lovegood (Evanna Lynch) showing her prowess for her important moments later. So, to the plot itself

The ministry for magic, in fear of what the return of Lord Voldemort would bring have tried to smear those that believe in it, including Dumbledore and Harry himself. Several of his former comrades, Seamus finnigan seemed to initially believe what had been written. Harry Potter is attacked in Little Winging by dementours alongside his brother, he uses a patronus charm to defend himself and ends up on trial. He is cleared of all charges but more serious problems arise on his return to Hogwarts, the ministry’s smear campaign had lead them to trying to control Hogwarts, and prevent the students from using magic.

To try and keep the movie watchable (in terms of length) a notable number of subplots were cut out. Percy Weasley and Kreacher are reduced to cameos, the Centaur (Firenze) from the first movie does not make a reappearance, Dobby is also cut out. The scene in St Mungo’s hospital is cut, so are most of the OWL proceedings, the flu network is barely mentioned, there’s no mention of Quidditch and the exposition dump by Dumbledore at the end is cut to its bare minimum. Whilst regrettable it’s also understandable given the amount of story they have to adapt here.

There are also a couple of holes in internal logic. A lot of the duals, particularly near the end involve the children casting spells without uttering words, a power that isn’t taught to them until the next film. Then there’s the priori incontatum, the process in which wands connect. It isn’t explicitly mentioned until the final films that this was the case because Harry and Voldemort’s wands share the same core but here the fight with Dumbledore demonstrates the same ability despite that power lacking.

Oh, and the change in the dementors design makes them look terrible

But overall it’s not a bad film, and I’m perhaps a little more forgiving of its shortcomings than I would with other films.

Rating 70/100

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Images used in this review are from Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix and belong to their respective owners. All images in this review are subject to fair use