Movie Review - Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

So when you get on a roll writing, you want to keep writing. Thus, the movie review of a movie I saw a couple of weeks ago. Bear with me.

(This review assumes you've seen all the HP movies and read up through Book Five. Read ahead at your own risk if you haven't done either.)

By the time this movie comes out on DVD, you might need to change the title to: "Harry Potter and the Screaming Fangirls." Harry has grown up. I actually think he's shaving. That seriously disturbs me. But more on that later.

"Order of the Phoenix" is a long book, jam packed with Harry's teenage angst in a major way - he's actually kind of bratty, although I'm almost willing to give the kid a pass most of the time, except when he's rotten to his friends. This leaves the movie some big shoes to fill, and the attempt is nobly made, but in the end it misses the one feeling I get every time I read the book: deep and sickening dread.

A quick synopsis: Harry has watched Cedric Diggory die at the hands of Voldemort, and knows the evil one is back. When this book starts, Harry is trying to tell everyone who will listen that Voldemort is back - but most people don't believe him and the Minster of Magic and his cronies are painting Harry as a big fat liar. Harry is dealing with that, his crush on Cho Chang, and the horrifically creepy kitten-plate loving Dolores Umbridge, who is trying to run the school with an iron fist encased in a frilly pink glove.

One of the horrors of the book for me was Harry's punishment at Umbridge's hands - he must write lines in his own blood, which will scar his skin. And this happens repeatedly, in Umbridge's pink classroom where she refuses to teach spells against the Dark Arts - a hands-off, ignore-the-truth policy that infuriates me every time because I equate it with abstinence-only sex education. If we pretend it isn't happening, it isn't! Now. Let's discuss knitting.

The movie touches on this punishment briefly (oh but we do get a lovely shot of the mewing kitten plates; I nearly died laughing in the theater when I saw them) but doesn't give me that same lingering feeling of malevolence, incompetance and horror that I get when I read the book. There simply isn't time.

That's what this movie really needed - more time to tell the story. From the dementor attack in the beginning to the end when the world knows the truth, this movie hurries along at a sharp clip. Even Fred and George's school-ditching revenge gets shorter shrift than it really deserved. (And can we even agree on what a dementor looks like from one film to the next? Please??)

Of course, Imelda Staunton inhabits Umbridge with a sort of tittering glee; watching her go toe-to-toe, literally, with Dame Maggie Smith (McGonagall) is sheer fun, partially because I kept hoping McGonagall would eat Umbridge for breakfast - you know she's capable of it. And the creme de la creme of British acting royalty always deliver in these films, so you're getting good solid casting and talent. Try to tell me Emma Thompson isn't having loads of fun as flighty Sybil Trelawny. Just try it.

Even Rupert Grint, who is Ron Weasley, is no longer mugging like he did in movies two and three, and instead gives us some depth. All the kids are getting better, and this time we have the inclusion of Luna Lovegood (Evanna Lynch) who is as spacey as I expected Luna to be, although not as serious as I had pictured her. But no matter. The ending, while unfortunately truncated, is pure wizardly fun - Helena Bonham Carter gets to be crazy-on-a-stick as Bellatrix LeStrange, Gary Oldman reminds us again why purely creepy roles do him short shrift as the heroic Sirius Black, and there's always Jason Isaacs as Lucius Malfoy to chew scenery in his blond wig if needed.

And back to Harry shaving. Harry is having bad dreams, so we get closeups of Harry writhing, sweaty and tortured, in his sleep. Suddenly I could picture teenage girls the world over getting gooey at the sight of him - he's going to be a hunk at some point in his life, and since he's legal, I only feel mostly creepy at saying this, not entirely creepy - and they are likely watching his nightmares with the urge to both snuggle him, and possibly snog him. (I'll use the British term out of politeness.) It's both fun and offputting to watch these kids grow up on film. In the first movie he was huggably adorable. By the seventh movie he'll be able to drink legally in the States. And that really kind of squicked me out. But anyway, it was bound to happen sooner or later. I just have to avoid those shirtless Equus play pics or I'll feel like a real pervert.

Animal Trauma: I don't recall any, a few weeks out, but you might feel sorry for those mewling kittens in the plates!

Overall: Competant but rushed. I give it three roses out of five, and promise to try to control the creeped-out squicks if Harry has facial hair in the next film.

A little side note: I saw this movie the weekend Book Seven came out, and I remember sitting in the theater saying to myself: "I have all the answers at home!" And when I got home the first thing I did was plow through that book to get the answers.