Cinema review
Directed by David Yates
Starring Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson, Rupert Grint, Michael Gambon, Imelda Staunton
Release date 12 July 2007

It’s a dark time for Harry Potter. Nobody believes his claims that Voldemort has returned and he’s plagued by terrifying dreams that he doesn’t understand. To top it off, Hogwarts falls under control of the authoritarian Ministry of Magic…

The Harry Potter movies have come a long way since the shaky CGI and stilted performances of 2001’s Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone. Alfonso Cuarón’s The Prisoner of Azkaban was an edgy and imaginative highpoint, while Mike Newell made a decent stab at a thrilling action fantasy with The Goblet of Fire.

Yet Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix disappoints. This is no doubt partly down to the fact that JK Rowling’s hefty tome is widely regarded as the weakest entry in the series, serving largely as a convoluted set-up for the events to follow. As a result, there’s just very little sense of tension – you know Harry won’t die, you know Voldemort won’t be defeated – and in its place is a vague sense of foreboding that is never quite realised.

Director David Yates and screenwriter Michael Goldenberg do a good job at scaling back some of the novel’s meandering elements, but it’s still a very plot-heavy movie and the story's magical machinations often come at the expense of character. Favourites like Dumbledore, Hagrid and Professor Snape are relegated to the sidelines, with the action firmly rooted around Harry himself.

Luckily, Radcliffe has matured as an actor in the last six years, and he successfully handles Harry's increasingly challenging emotional states, ably supported by the rest of the now-teenage cast. Of the newcomers, young Irish actress Evanna Lynch stands out as Luna Lovegood, a loopy, sweet-tempered and wistful schoolgirl with a sing-song voice and a shock of white hair – the perfect antidote to the scrubbed-up super-poshness of Hermione Grainger. The worst new character is Grawp, a horrible, wide-eyed, sentimental CGI giant, who should nevertheless play well to very small children.

There is much to like here. The movie opens strongly, with a brilliantly realised sequence in which Harry and Dudley are confronted by Tormentors, and ends equally strongly with an impressive special effect-filled battle. David Yates may have a background in TV shows such as State of Play and Sex Traffic, but he manages to invest the movie with an epic feel, and is well-suited to handling the darker elements of the story.

Despite the more grown-up themes, The Order of the Phoenix remains firmly rooted in a strange childhood neverland; Harry gets to lock lips with Katie Leung’s Cho Chang, but it’s the only concession you’ll find to the hormonally-charged 16-year-olds of the real world. But then, nobody expected this to be a wizard version of Larry Clark’s Kids. As a flashy family-oriented adventure, The Order of the Phoenix works just fine. It just lacks the weird sense of magic and wonder that typifies the very best children’s movies. James Skipp

VERDICT: 6/10
Weaker than the last two Potter movies, but kids and fans will love it nonetheless.