Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
Returning for his fifth year of study at Hogwarts, Harry is stunned to find that his warnings about the return of Lord Voldemort have been ignored. Left with no choice, Harry takes matters into his own hands, training a small group of students to defend themselves against the dark arts.
-
- Cast:
- Daniel Radcliffe , Rupert Grint , Emma Watson , Imelda Staunton , Helena Bonham Carter , Robbie Coltrane , Gary Oldman
Similar titles
Reviews
Pretty Good
Excellent and certainly provocative... If nothing else, the film is a real conversation starter.
A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.
Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable
While it is a step up from the previous film, the Goblet of Fire, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix still does not quite capture the figurative 'magic' that the first three ( Especially the third ).In the Order of the Phoenix, like in the first two movies, a lot of the scenes seem to take place indoors and are mostly beautifully lit as opposed to the Goblet of Fire which thrived on digital outdoor backgrounds which mostly looked pretty ugly, and therefore the cinematography is a bit better once again, but still not as good as the sweeping shots of the green plains and mountains were in the Prisoner of Azkaban. Its narrative is, also unlike the first three, not really anything special in this one, as Harry gets falsely accused, keeps having nightmares about you know who ( Which also happened in the Goblet of Fire ), while a corrupt ministry of magic lackey is trying to take over Hogwarts, all in a very linear fashion. There is little of the mystery & surprise that the Chamber of Secrets or Prisoner of Azkaban had.The camaraderie between the three main characters Ron, Harry & Hermione does fortunately seem to be back, after Ron's weird fits of jealousy and unprovoked anger seemed to come out of nowhere in the Goblet of Fire which severely damaged these ties with the audience. It is also admirable how much better Rupert Grint & Emma Watson have become as actors after maturing with age, although Daniel Radcliffe sadly seems to be stuck on his level, as he could never really pull off the conflicted & angry Harry Potter that he is supposed to be in the Order of the Phoenix. It is less amibitous than the Goblet of Fire, with a lot less new characters being introduced, and on the contrary to its predecessor, most of the new characters in this film are indeed interesting. Especially Imelda Staunton as Dolores Umbridge puts in a phenomenal performance as one of the most hatred-inducing characters ever put to films. Her snobby, arrogant & know-it-all behavior which seemingly cannot be stopped by anyone will make the audience want to gouge her eyes out, which does in turn improve immersion into the film since you want to know her fate. Helena Bonham Carter is also quite the cast for the crazed Bellatrix Lestrange, who embodies her insanity perfectly. Evanna Lynch, while not seemingly such a great actress at this point, is however simply the perfect cast for her character Luna Lovegood as this character is supposed to be quite odd and eccentric in her own way.The special effects are most of the time well made, with this film featuring another spell-clashing scene, like the Goblet of Fire. However, the forced way of including Voldemort in the later scene of the film seemed to be a bit out of place, and only there to convince the Minister that the dark lord is indeed back and regaining in strength, which furthermore feeds my throughts about this mostly being a filler in the series. Unlike in the Goblet of Fire, the death of a character in this one ( Sirius Black ) does tug at the heartstrings a bit, since in both this film and in Azkaban we create a bond with his character, since his fatherly role to Harry and brilliant performance by Gary Oldman created one of the best characters in the franchise. Which is ofcourse in stark contrast to the previous death of Cedric Driggory in Goblet of Fire who you don't care about so much. However, Harry's denial of Voldemort controlling his thoughts is quite lame ( I have friends and you don't, therefore i have something to live for...., not great writing there ).While it introduces some good characters and features great camaraderie between its characters and has some emotional connection at the end, the relatively simple narrative and overly politically influenced plot do little to capture that magic that Harry Potter is famous for, and most of the time feels like a filler if nothing else. It will not go down as one of the best in the series, but it is still a solid continuation of it due to the strength of the bonding of its characters.
'Harry Potter And The Order Of The Phoenix (2007)' is more concise than past entries yet seems to suffer from less drive, the plot meandering about somewhat until it kicks into gear towards the third act. Yet, the focus on the school itself and the teenage ensemble is refreshing. It's nice to be introduced to some proper magical combat, too, and this entry manages to maintain a decent tonal balance while it elaborates upon the bleaker aspects of the lore. It's easily one of the best in the series thanks to a fine exploration of several core characters and some proper stakes, even those that go unseen for most of the piece. 8/10
This did not do very well on account of the hateful character of Dolores Umbrish; the unclear contexts; poor chemistry of Harry and Cho. Nevertheless there were interesting elements like direct encounter between the death eaters and order of Phoenix; of Dumbledore and Voldemort (who can forget). Also the importance of friendship and love as above any fear or evil is crux of the part. The surprise that the Wesley brothers offered in the middle is also worth mentioning. Overall you just cannot miss it as it is part of the legendary series.
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix is the first Harry Potter movie directed by David Yates. Some fans love Yates and his different style, but there are people who don't like him, myself included. Sure, he's the one responsible for my favourite half of the series, where Harry is growing up and everything is darker. But in the movies the characters aren't as deep and the darkness feels more like a colour scheme than a change in the story telling.Yates's style chooses action over the story - which makes no sense when considering what the novel was like. Order of the Phoenix had very little action, but it explored wonderfully, for example, Harry after seeing Voldemort returning and seeing Cedric Diggory being brutally murdered. In the movie you can see it bothers Harry, he is incredibly angry, but that's that. If you haven't read the book it only seems like Harry is having his puberty and therefore a bit moody, even if you could claim he has a case of PTSD. There are many emotional scenes in the novel that weren't included in the movie. They were completely forgotten or replaced by something really, really weird, apart from few that were important to the plot - they saved the scenes that were important when looking at this one movie, but ignored the story as a whole, and they seemed to figure character development was not that important. Harry Potter series is not seven separate stories it's one story in seven parts. At this point it's clear the filmmakers didn't care about the story as much as making the movies and making fans watch them and just get through the whole series. But it's lovely to see the film allowing few characters develop properly: like Neville during the DA. They tried to fake Ginny developing as well by only showing us that she is indeed amazing with spells. Still the filmmakers have forgotten to give her any sort of personality. I love her in the books but in movies she's just an empty husk - skillful of course, but she's not as interesting as in the books. ' Order of Phoenix is over-simplified and is trying to force a story into a film form in the easiest way possible. Yes, sure, they didn't have so much time to focus on the stories individually considering the stars were growing up but still, this is ridiculous.