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This film is based on J. K. Rowling’s 2003 novel of the same name, and both are the fifth installment of their respective mediums from the Harry Potter franchise.
Rating: PG-13
Director: David Yates
Writers: J.K. Rowling, Michael Goldenberg
Stars: Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson, Rupert Grint, Gary Oldman, Ralph Fiennes, Imelda Staunton, Matthew Lewis, Evanna Lynch, Michael Gambon
Release Date: July 11, 2007 (United States)
Run time: 2 hours, 18 minutes
THE PLOT:
via wiki:
While staying at the Dursleys’, Harry Potter and Dudley are attacked by Dementors. Harry repels them using a Patronus spell. The Ministry of Magic detects the underaged Harry using magic and expels him from Hogwarts, though he is later exonerated.
The Order of the Phoenix, a secret organisation, founded by Albus Dumbledore, informs Harry that the Ministry of Magic is attempting to stonewall rumors about Lord Voldemort‘s return. At the Order’s headquarters, Harry’s godfather, Sirius Black, mentions that Voldemort seeks an object he previously lacked; Harry believes it to be a weapon.
Minister for Magic Cornelius Fudge has appointed Dolores Umbridge as Hogwarts new Defence Against the Dark Arts professor. Umbridge’s refusal to teach defensive spells causes her and Harry to clash. Harry is forced to write lines for “lying” about Voldemort. A magic quill etches the words into his hand as he writes. Ron and Hermione are outraged, but Harry refuses to tell Dumbledore, who has distanced himself from Harry. As Umbridge gains more control over the school, Ron and Hermione help Harry form “Dumbledore’s Army“, a secret group to teach students defensive spells. Umbridge recruits Slytherins for an Inquisitorial Squad to spy on the other students. Meanwhile, Harry and Cho Chang develop romantic feelings for each other.
One night, Harry envisions Arthur Weasley being attacked at the Ministry, seeing it from the attacker’s perspective. Concerned that Voldemort will exploit this connection to Harry, Dumbledore has Severus Snape teach Harry Occlumency to defend his mind from Voldemort’s influence. During a lesson, Harry sees Snape’s memories of how his father, James, bullied and tormented Snape in school. The connection between Harry and Voldemort further isolates Harry from his friends. Meanwhile, Bellatrix Lestrange, Sirius’s deranged Death Eater cousin, escapes Azkaban prison along with nine other Death Eaters. At Hogwarts, Umbridge and her Inquisitorial Squad expose Dumbledore’s Army. Dumbledore, falsely accused of forming it, escapes as Fudge orders his arrest. Harry believes Cho betrayed Dumbledore’s Army to Umbridge, ending their budding relationship. Umbridge becomes the new Headmistress.
Harry experiences a vision that Voldemort is torturing Sirius. Harry, Ron, and Hermione rush to Umbridge’s office to alert the Order via the Floo Network. Umbridge catches them and, as she is about to severely punish Harry, Hermione claims Dumbledore has hidden a “secret weapon” in the Forbidden Forest. She and Harry lead Umbridge to where Hagrid’s giant half-brother, Grawp is kept. The centaurs confront them and kidnap Umbridge after she insults and attacks them. Harry, Hermione, Ron, Luna, Neville and Ginny fly to the Ministry of Magic on Thestrals to save Sirius.
The six enter the Department of Mysteries and recover the object that Voldemort is after, a bottled prophecy labelled with Harry’s name. Death Eaters, including Lucius Malfoy and Bellatrix Lestrange, ambush them. Lucius reveals that Harry’s vision of Sirius being tortured was a ruse to lure him there. Harry refuses to give Lucius the prophecy, and a fight between Dumbledore’s Army and the Death Eaters ensues. The Death Eaters overpower the students and force Harry to surrender the prophecy. When Harry hands it to Lucius, Sirius and Remus Lupin arrive with Order members Nymphadora Tonks, Kingsley Shacklebolt and Mad-Eye Moody. As they attack the Death Eaters, Lucius drops the prophecy, destroying it. Just as Sirius overpowers Lucius, Bellatrix kills Sirius.
Voldemort appears, but moments before he can kill Harry, Dumbledore arrives. A violent duel erupts, destroying much of the Atrium, while Bellatrix escapes. The two wizards are evenly matched, so Voldemort possesses Harry’s body, wanting Dumbledore to sacrifice him. The love Harry feels for his friends and family quickly drives out Voldemort. Ministry officials arrive before Voldemort disapparates; Fudge admits that Voldemort has returned and resigns in disgrace. Umbridge is dismissed and Dumbledore returns as Hogwarts headmaster. Dumbledore explains he had distanced himself from Harry to prevent Voldemort exploiting their connection. He also reveals the prophecy. As he grieves Sirius’s death, Harry tries coming to terms with the prophecy: “Neither can live while the other survives.”
My Review:
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix is the fifth film from the movie franchise and it is the first of the films that feels almost entirely devoid of fun and whimsy, despite the setting being a school of mischievous children. Thematically, that’s on point. This installment of the story is the calm before the storm. The war is coming, but the first shots have not yet been fired. David Yates picked up the director’s wand for this film and did a good job darkening the story without making it feel as though we had left the Wizarding World for some place new. That’s a legitimate challenge and should be commended.
The strength of this film is its acting performances. In addition to the standouts from the previous films, The Order of the Phoenix introduces my favorite character from the story, Luna Lovegood, portrayed by Evanna Lynch. Luna is an oddball conspiracy theorist, who also happens to be uncomfortably honest and insightful. Lynch was brilliant. Helena Bonham-Carter debuted in this film as Bellatrix LeStrange and though she did not have a lot to do, she absolutely dominated the screen when she was on it. The star of the film though was Imelda Staunton as Delores Umbridge. She was so good at playing such a hated character that I found myself wondering about her life in the immediate aftermath of these movies. Could she go outside without being hissed at? Was she ever be able to wear pink again? Ralph Fiennes at least looks quite different out of the Voldemort costume. Staunton’s Umbridge was somehow more loathsome than the Dark Lord while wearing a pink dress and sitting in an office decorated with cats.
One of the most interesting parts of the story for me was its commentary on different types of evil. When we think of evil, we might traditionally look for a bad guy who advertises his agenda in a dark cloak. Sometimes, though, evil masquerades as good while wearing bright and cheerful colors. Umbridge has a respectable job, even before Hogwarts. She has a simpering and too sweet voice. She is aggressively polite. Rather than wear black, she wears pink. It’s all a facade, though, and just beneath the surface is a crazed and profoundly insecure woman trying desperately and abusively to control her surroundings, regardless of the cost incurred while doing so. Her brand of insecure evil requires power to enable her own bullying, or children subject to her rule-breaking. The thing that makes Umbridge so repulsive is that her veneer of civility is so successful in obscuring her true self. A Lord Voldemort type is someone you are not likely ever to meet but if you saw a snake-man in a black cloak, you’d probably avoid him if you could. You’d certainly not hire him to work at the local high school. Through his appearance, he is advertising to the world that he is someone who is best to be avoided. Umbridge is particularly vile because she is dishonest in a way that Voldemort is not – maybe even with herself – about what she is. There is something innate in human nature that detests this type of person.
Another example of evil is the Minister of Magic, Cornelius Fudge. His evil is passivity and cowardice. Rather than face reality, he attacks his natural allies for trying to force him to acknowledge the problem. Whatever political party you belong to, you can almost certainly think of someone from within your preferred ranks who reflexively and exclusively punches at his own side in an effort to make peace with the other side. This is passivity and cowardice masquerading as statesmanship or peacemaking. Certainly pushing back on one’s own side occasionally is the right thing to do, but if that’s the only move in your arsenal, it is likely that you are a coward in hiding. Cowardice can be a form of evil. That’s Fudge.
Rowling was a little bit ahead of her time in this story regarding the news media. Long before we had American politicians – and then the rest of the world’s politicians – decrying “the Fake News,” Rowling’s world depicted a news industry largely controlled by the government. The Daily Prophet was all-too-willing to peddle Fudge’s lies about Harry and Dumbledore if that suited those in power. That was not the mainstream assumption of how media worked, when Rowling wrote the novel, but it is now. The party in power has friendly media and hostile media alike. Very few people still believe in the notion of a neutral truth-speaking media.
Visually the movie is mostly excellent. Though it made no sense within the story, the scene of the Order flying Harry around London looked particularly good. Hogwarts castle and the grounds looked excellent as always also. Above all else though, I particularly liked the look of everything inside the Ministry of Magic’s Department of Mysteries, both the setting itself and the magical battle between Dumbledore and Voldemort. The biggest visual misfire of the film was its CGI giant, Grawp, who looked distractingly computer generated. On the whole though, that was one of the few things in the film, visually, that I did not really enjoy.
As for the story, this is the first Harry Potter movie that felt to me to be rushed and poorly paced. The movie covered so much ground that it was difficult to keep up with it all. Some of the story did not make sense as a result, too. For instance, we learn that the non-magical Mrs. Figg has been keeping an eye out on Harry all summer, but we are not told how that was supposed to do him any good. Another instance of the plot being rushed was Neville’s discovery of The Rom of Requirement. He kind of gets bullied and then he just sort of finds the room. How? Why? The movie doesn’t provide an explanation for how the meetings were able to be organized in secret and how they avoided detection for so long. The movie also rushes the introduction of Grawp, Hagrid’s giant brother, such that he kind of shows up almost immediately before the kids need to use him to get rid of Umbridge. The story also makes the general rushed mistake of giving Ron and Ginny so little to do that you almost forget that they are there. These movies are each a part of a whole, so exiling two important characters crates a storytelling hole that must be dug out of later.
In addition to pacing issues causing story confusion, the movie also ignores its own in-story rules about the Statute of Secrecy. After it was such a big deal that Harry repelled Dementy-whatsits, publicly, the Order of the Phoenix flies Harry low, first in full view of a neighbor boy, then low up the river Thames, and in full view of London’s most recognizable buildings. This is an example of prioritizing a cool scene over the story making sense. It also doesn’t make sense that Umbridge is able to explode open the Room of Requirement. Not only should that not be possible, the fact that it is possible within the movies will cause continuity problems for later movie plots.
On the positive side, I thought the movie also provided some of the best emotional moments in the franchise to date. First, the death of Sirius Black was well-executed and gut-wrenching. Daniel Radcliffe’s portrayal of Harry’s agony in that scene might have been his best work in the series so far. Harry’s brief possession by Voldemort, just a bit later, was also satisfyingly moving. In that dark and horrifying moment, he learns the true value of love and friendship and through that he internalizes the difference between himself and Voldemort – something he has struggled with, off and on, since the franchise started. It was a particular struggle in this film, where he worries that the connection he has with Voldy is leading him down a path toward becoming evil himself. Harry overcoming that worry was a great payoff to a long buildup, and a turning point for Harry and for the story.
On the whole, I feel as though The Order of the Phoenix is a mixed bag. It has great acting performances, especially by the newcomers, and it lands some big emotional plot moments well. On the other hand, it was rushed, which led to the story being hard to follow at times. The characters also made choices that were hard to make sense of – such as flying around London in full view of Muggles. The cinematography and visual effects were very good, for most of the film, though Grawp’s CGI appearance does not hold up well. The movie is definitely good, but I came away feeling that it might have been great with some small improvements or a longer runtime.
Have you seen Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix? What did you think?
Other Franchise Reviews:
Great review! I’ve always felt the pacing for this movie was dreadful as well. Given it’s the longest book in the series, it really ought to have been given a bit more space to breathe on screen.
Thank you! And I agree. Even just 20 more minutes would have made a huge difference.
As a book fan, it bothered me in particular that the sequence with the Dursleys at the start of the film is so brief. Harry in the kitchen with the Dursleys, explaining that Voldemort is back, is one of my favorite sequences from the entire series.
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I love that meme lol. I rewatched all the HP movies and although I enjoyed this one I feel like so much was left out that was in the book. I wish they had made the movies in two parts or as a show or something.
Agreed. The first few chapters of Order of the Phoenix are some of my favorites in the entire series. It was a bummer to see it so truncated in the film (though I understand why it had to be that way.)
Apparently a TV show is in the works now. Rowling says that she wants it to be more book accurate than the movies, since the extra time should allow for fewer hard adaptation choices. It’ll be hard to recapture the magic they had with the movies, though.
Yeah, this book is one of my favourite books in the series so that was definitely disappointing. True, in movies you can only show so much. I feel like in a way you sort of can never get the details you get in a book on screen.
Yeah, I think it’s going to be on HBO if I’m not wrong. But let’s see. I don’t know how much I’ll like it since the movies hold a special place for many of us.
I really do not like this one because of that fatty Dolores Umbridge. But that actress did a terrific job as Queen Elizabeth II in the 5th & 6th season in “The Crown”.
I agree that Umbridge is so easy to hate that it can make watching the movie difficult. I haven’t seen “The Crown.” What didn’t you like about the portrayal?
She makes too much rules. And tortures Harry too much. That includes Prof. Snape. Good thing he learned a lesson when he had prostate cancer. Leading to his death in early 2016. It’s best that they would be in comedies like “Harry and the Hendersons”. Heck, if I were that Harry guy from “Harry and the Hendersons”, she’d be freaked out hilariously. And she would pee herself for seeing a sasquatch.
Where I come from, he was funny in “Galaxy Quest” than the HP series. Along with Tim Allen, Sigourney Weaver, Sam Rockwell, Missi Pyle, Justin Long and more. And yet, I still think of that Star Trek spoof movie with those funny moments.