Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

Now we are hitting the home stretch. The characters are in place and manned by either top notch actors or young’uns that are actually improving as the franchise moves along. While there is still plenty of talking to get across the plot, we are well into the zone of major action set pieces for each movie. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix suffers from being an obvious middle chapter so there was not much of a conclusion. Still that does not deter it from rising nearly to the top of the franchise (although I still have The Prisoner of Azkaban in the first slot).

The Harry Potter directing merry-go-round stops in front of David Yates (who? yeah I don't know either) this time. So it is up to him to pull off the full transition from kids games to life and death political struggle. Whereas The Goblet of Fire ends with copious amounts of shit hitting various fans, but it is The Order of the Phoenix that is 95% political intrigue and 5% Harry likes girls. That is one of the better parts of the movie distillation process, while much of the book is spent with Harry and Cho, the screenwriter took a chainsaw to it and mashed it into 10 minutes of screen-time. That left Yates with the meatier topics of Harry’s growing insanity, Umbridge’s takeover of Hogwarts, and the whup-ass Ministry of Magic battle. As luck would have it, he is able to nail all three. In fact, I was shocked with how well the connection between Voldermort and Harry’s mind was portrayed. Maybe it was the increasing skill of Daniel Radcliffe but the scene where he is finally face-to-face with Dumbledore after Nagini’s attack on Arthur Weasley is probably Radcliffe’s best acting in the series so far. This segue ways into the always great, but always minimal, Alan Rickman scenes. I would have been in favor of more Snape breaking into Harry’s mind but we only get a couple of practices then to make things worse they botched Snape’s worst memory by cutting out Harry’s mom. Ah well that’s why the book is better. Moving along to Dolores Umbridge, Imelda Staunton is just another insanely talented Brit who has been brought into the fold. And she must have done a hell of a job because I hated her on film nearly as much as I hated her in the book. Once again Yates did right by doing justice to the detention torture scene of Harry carving "I will not tell lies" into the back of his hand. God what a piece of shit, Grawp should have eaten her. Now the Ministry of Magic showdown was another part of the movie that completely exceeded my expectations. Well to be specific, Dumbledore versus Voldermort was finally a fully realized wizard duel and it looked damn sweet. Ralph Fiennes is turning Lord Voldermort into one of the best villains in cinematic history. He is having way too much fun being a human/snake hybrid. He is going to dominate The Half-Blood Prince (this does depend on child casting though) and The Deathly Hallows. As for my man, Michael Gambon, he continues to piss off Harry Potter fans while simultaneously making me more and more a fan of his version of Dumbledore. Dumbledore’s an asshole and I am glad that Gambon anticipated the book seven revelations or fell assbackwards into them … whatever.

All that is left is to praise the rest of the cast. Although I preferred crazy dirty and emaciated Gary Oldman in The Prisoner of Azkaban, it is still Gary Oldman and he gets almost 20 minutes worth of acting time before biting it. Sadly, Sirius’s death scene was another misstep. It happened too fast and there wasn’t the emotion that there should have been. Still it ain't Oldman's fault. The always fantastic Emma Thompson gets a nice Trelawney getting sacked scene. I hope they bring back drunk Trelawney hiding her booze in The Half-Blood Prince. I am going to continue listing more names. Helena Bonham Carter may have been the only actress who could do Bellatrix Lestrange justice. I loved her running away sing-songing “I killed Sirius Black!” That still leaves Maggie Smith, Robbie Coltrane, Brendan Gleeson, David Thewlis, George Harris, Julie Walters, and Jason Isaacs fill out the ridiculous cast and make me love England which in turn makes me feel bad about the Revolutionary War. As for the teens running around in the major roles, Dan Radcliffe is starting to show signs of being a damn decent actor. Everyone else is fine, maybe nothing to write home about but they don’t cause scenes to grind to a halt. Overall this was a fine entry to the franchise.

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix was exactly what I hoped it would be. It was right in line with the rest of the franchise while still being able to shift focus to more serious political topics and Harry’s increasing isolation. Plus I was very pleased that the Ministry of Magic battle was done like a badass action scene, which it was. Now I am even more excited for Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. Voldermort is my hero.

9 out of 10