I was fortunate enough to go to the theater recently and see “Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix”. I attended with one friend who had read the Harry Potter books and another who hadn’t read the books, but had seen the previous films. Caution: it is possible that those not familiar with the books may consider some of the material below to be spoilers.

This movie is based on the book of the same name, the fifth in the seven book series. It picks up about a month after Harry’s encounter with Voldemort, the penultimate evil wizard, in the graveyard. Harry’s enduring a sweltering summer with his aunt, uncle and rotten cousin.
As the paperback version of the book is 870 pages long, the story had to be condensed considerably, several characters were left out, and some sequences in the movie differed from the book in the interest of keeping things simpler. Some scenes still don’t translate easily from print to a complicated computer graphic effect, but the major plot elements remain the same. One of the most important ones occurs almost immediately in the film when Harry and his cousin Dudley are attacked by dementors, soul sucking ghouls, despite the Muggle (non-magical) neighborhood, being supposedly a safe haven from such creatures. Harry manages to fight them off successfully and saves his cousin from a certain death, only to be berated by his aunt and uncle and expelled from Hogwarts- the school for wizards, for violating the prohibition of underage magic away from school grounds.
Harry must attend a hearing to plead his case, and he discovers to his shock that the Ministry is in a state of paranoid denial about the return of Voldemort and will go to almost any length to discredit anyone who knows the truth. Dumbledore, the headmaster of Hogwarts, comes to Harry’s aid, but only barely manages to convince the Ministry to drop their ludicrous charges. Harry wants to confide in Dumbledore and find out why he is being treated like a criminal, but even Dumbledore is avoiding him.
Harry takes up residence at the home of his godfather, Sirius Black, which is now the headquarters of the Order of the Phoenix, a contingent of wizards who have banded together to fight Voldemort and his evil servants, the Death Eaters. The Ministry of Magic refuses to acknowledge the existence of Voldemort and the Order must remain underground. Because Harry is just 15, he is deemed too young to join or even get full disclosure on the peril he is in, which frustrates him to no end.
As in all the previous stories, Harry’s best friends, Hermione and Ron, stand by him, but it is particularly challenging this time because Harry has outbursts of anger so intense that even he is baffled by it. Classmate Neville is also back, about a foot taller it seems, which makes his bumbling lack of confidence sort of sad. Harry’s crush from last year, Cho Chang, is prettier than ever, but the movie pretty much glosses over their awkward romance except for one scene.
There is a student we haven’t met before, Luna Lovegood, who fully lives up to her name. Her father writes the wizardry equivalent of The National Enquirer, and she believes in all sorts of creatures that don’t exist, which makes her seem crazy at first glance. To her credit, she also has absolute faith in Harry Potter and is completely unfazed by things that would terrify most people.
As with every Harry Potter story, there is a new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher, but she comes from someplace no one would ever expect: the Ministry of Magic. Dolores Umbridge, a deceptively sweet-looking woman, clad head to toe in pink, deftly portrayed by Imelda Staunton, begins the campaign to reform Hogwarts by forbidding the students to perform any defensive spells and forcing them to read remedial useless texts. Turns out she’s only getting started.
While Professor Umbridge looks harmless enough, she soon is revealed to be a pink Nazi, making speeches about order and conformity, assuming more and more power awarded to her by the Ministry, and issuing numerous restrictive decrees. Soon, she is firing professors, taking over as headmaster, and essentially holding the students hostage. She gives Harry detention, forcing him to write “I must not tell lies” in his own blood.
With the students no longer allowed to learn how to defend themselves from evil, they end up turning to Harry, who is the only one who has had to use adult-level spells in real-life situations. He very reluctantly agrees to teach them what he knows, but how to do this without alerting Umbridge?
Then the Room of Requirement, a hidden area of the castle that transforms into whatever the user needs, is discovered. And so the lessons begin, with clumsy Neville making the most progress and gaining some very heartening confidence. They name themselves Dumbledore’s Army, because that’s precisely the Ministry’s biggest fear.
It is in the Room of Requirement that Harry and Cho share a kiss under the mistletoe, but it is bittersweet because Cho is mourning the death of her boyfriend, Cedric, who was killed by Voldemort. Poor Harry is clueless when it comes to how girls view romance, so Hermione tries her best to explain, but you can tell Harry doesn’t quite get it.
As if detention, secret meetings and awkward romance weren’t enough, Harry is haunted by very strong visions of shiny black hallways in the Ministry of Magic, Voldemort and locked doors. What’s worse, he can tell what Voldemort is feeling, and in one vision, Harry becomes a snake that attacks Ron’s father. He his horrified to find out that this really happened, and he fears that he is actually becoming Voldemort.
After the attack on Mr. Weasley, Dumbledore realizes how much access Voldemort has to Harry’s mind. He has the vile Professor Snape give Harry lessons, so that Harry can block these attempts. Snape, portrayed by the always excellent Alan Rickman, tries to bully Harry into locking his mind, but he still can see even the most private memories Harry possesses, like watching snippets of a forbidden film. Harry gets revenge by witnessing a scene from Snape’s childhood that reveals how cruelly he was treated by Harry’s father.
When Harry has a vision of Sirius being threatened by Voldemort at the Ministry of Magic, he desperately thinks of a way to rescue his godfather. He tries to warn Sirius, which is prohibited under the new school rules, and is caught by none other than Umbridge. Hermione saves the day by leading Umbridge into a trap in the Forbidden Forest involving a giant and several centaurs.
Harry is determined to go to the Ministry alone, but Hermione, Ron, Neville, Ginny (Ron’s sister) and Luna insist on accompanying him. Luna suggests they use thestrals, an unearthly combination of horse and winged reptile that can only be seen by those who have witnessed a death (both she and Harry have), for transportation. The movie glosses over how they got the rest of the kids to ride invisible creatures, but they are soon at the Ministry looking for Sirius.
Problem is, Sirius isn’t there after all. While looking, they come across hundreds of orbs containing prophecies, one labeled with Harry Potter’s name. While Harry examines this curious object, who should appear but Death Eaters, one of whom is Bellatrix Lastrange, the woman who tortured Neville’s parents into madness.
Lucius Malfoy, one of the Death Eaters, informs Harry that the prophecy is what Voldemort wants, but Harry wisely refuses to give it up. A massive battle ensues, the kids bravely put their recent training to the ultimate test, and the prophecy is lost.
Luckily, reinforcements arrive in the form of the Order of the Phoenix, including Sirius. Bellatrix gets the better of Sirius, and he vanishes as though he were a wisp of smoke. Harry can do nothing about this.
The biggest battle, though, is yet to come. Voldemort appears in the Ministry of Magic to dispatch Harry, and Dumbledore himself takes on the Dark Lord. Their fight is dazzlingly brilliant.
With a running time of two hours, fifteen minutes, I felt there was room for a bit more material in the way of explanation. There are a few segments that may be difficult for someone to comprehend who hasn’t read the books, but the film was otherwise excellent, with fine performances as usual by Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint and Emma Watson. I already want to see it again.
Reviewed by Karen Brauer, 2007 butyoudontlooksick.com