Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (The Movie): Harry Puts Away Childish Things

I saw the new Harry Potter movie today with my granddaughter, who read the book three times, and in a surprisingly cross-generational consensus, we both liked it much more than we expected.

We both agree that we never saw a movie that was as good as the book, so with that said upfront, we found the movie worked as a movie without violating the thrust of the book in a way superior to the previous two Potter movies.

The movie dramatically jumps into the rising threat of Voldemort's return with the attack upon Harry and Dudley Dursley by the dementors and moves swiftly through Harry's introduction to the secret Order of the Phoenix which alone understands the impending threat. Fifteen-year-old Harry finds it impossible to fall back into the youthful high jinks at Hogwarts as he watches the school sink under the control of the Ministry of Magic's minion, deliciously named Dolores Umbridge, whose mission is to stamp out any rumor of the rise of the Death Eaters and the return of Voldemort.

Harry's struggle to stand alone against the threat and his part in the final wizard's duel gives the CGI guys a chance to put on a good show, and they do so in a satisfying but restrained way. I'd give the movie a strong A- for its delicate selectivity and strong performances by a sterling cast. It's almost as good as the first two movies, and given that there's little room for boyish fun and games in this plot, that's saying a lot.

Because of its complexities and the brevity of exposition for characters and secondary plot lines from earlier books, it is almost essential that the viewer have read or at least seen the previous four stories before taking in this movie. Director David Yates uses a sort of insider's shorthand which would leave the moviegoer lost without previous experience with the series.

For me Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix was a good but difficult book--long and byzantine in its political intrigue and grimly serious in its ambivalent playing out of the theme of good and evil. The fact that no movie can encompass a really good novel, especially one of 800+ pages, is an advantage for Yates, who obviously realizes the impossibility of trying and wisely cuts to the chase. As Boston Globe critic Ty Burr (author of the previously reviewed The Best Old Movies for Families: A Guide to Watching Together says, "All Potter movies are acts of literary triage," and Yates does an admirably good job of selectivity in what he puts on screen.

The basic theme of good versus evil evident from Rowling's first book is there, of course, but the sub-theme of the mixture of good and evil in all of us, is really the matter of this book, and Yate's direction gives this theme a strong underscoring. As Voldemort gains followers and power, Harry fears that in his persistent nightmares he himself is falling into the dark side, that Voldemort is slowly taking over his mind. Sirius Black counsels Harry that all humans have both good and evil in them, but that the test is ultimately in what they choose to do.

Harry Potter is, of course, also a coming-of-age story in which magic is metaphor for the powers of good earned as the young make their way to maturity. Some (see John Granger's Looking for God in Harry Potter) go so far as to see the novels as almost religious allegory in the same genre as Pilgrim's Progress. All of that moral complexity is hard to put into a summertime blockbuster movie, but Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix deserves an A for effort.

FYI, Chicago Sun-Times reviewer Roger Ebert gives the movie a nuanced thumbs up, saying "it's a well-crafted entry in the "Potter" series." Critic Ty Burr generally agrees, adding, "Playtime is over.... Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix is all business, and it casts a spell utterly unlike the first four films."

The film is rated PG-13 in consideration of some potentially frightening fantasy sequences.

Post-Post Note: Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix broke box office records for this past weekend. As can be seen from your comments, public opinion is all over the map on the movie, depending on whether the viewer wants a literal film of the entire novel, page by page, or a cohesive film which is a work of art in its own right! Pity the poor screenwriter and director who has to try to please both camps!

But with box-office receipts like they got this past week, that's how they earn the big bucks!