Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, the fifth movie from J.K. Rowling’s book series arrives in theaters as the seventh and final book is released this month. All the familiar faces return in this one, Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson, Rupert Grint return as Harry and his two best friends. Filling the adults roles is a who’s who list of top British actors, including Ralph Fiennes, Gary Oldman, Brendan Gleeson and Potter newcomer Imelda Stauton among others.
Before Harry gets back to school he is attached by dementers at a playground and must use his magic, in front of a moggle no less, to ward them off. This act gets Harry in trouble and leads to the wizard community doubting Harry and his claims that “You Know Who” is recruiting soldiers and coming back to take over like he tried before when Harry was a baby.

Harry must fight new dark moods and feelings within his mind (I’d call it puberty) leading to the favorite cliche of calling it a darker movie.

Also thrown in is a possible revolution within the wizard community, a forced love interest for Harry and a too strict new headmaster at Hogwarts.

The film, directed by British television veteran David Yates, takes this darker tone than previous adaptations and includes a few more story lines for adults. Unfortunately, as the books get longer the movies get shorter. The book Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix is 870 pages long, but the movies come in at only a little bit over 2 hours. I rarely say this, especially when summer blockbusters are concerned, but this needed to be a half hour longer. Character development is missing almost entirely and subplots do not get their full due on screen, leading to moments of puzzlement if not a reader of the books.
Harry’s dealings with “You Know Who” is the main focus, naturally, but other characters are given little to add depth to them. Harry’s two best friends, Hermione and Ron, are only on screen when they are asking Harry questions and helping progress the plot. Hermione and Ron seem to only be in scenes together and never just one of them and Harry, eliminating any character traits built through the first four movies. The story of these three having to deal with puberty was used in the past movie and done much better than this one. In Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire we at least got the female view with Hermione’s crush on Vikto Krum. Another shallow story-line and character is Cho, Harry’s love interest first seen in the Goblet of Fire. Within this movie Harry and Cho have their first kiss, yet before that they literally only speak one line to each other, which Harry asked while in passing and share a glance, not what I would call a passionate affair or even awkward adolescents. The love subplot, like others within the movie, are forced on us and are not given the proper amount of time to develop properly.

Too often Yates hopes that the viewer has read the book and understands the conflict or story he is trying to develop. A viewer should be able to fully understand the stories within the movie completely without having to read the book, unfortunately for this one anyone that has not read the book will feel lost at times.

I know that if you have read the books or seen the previous four movies then you will most likely see this film no matter what my review says. Before you go just make sure you have freshened up on the book as you will have to think back to it, to fully understand this movie. Here’s hoping that Yates, who is directing Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, makes a shorter bad movie next time around.