Review of Harry Potter And The Order of the Phoenix (Two Discs)

Introduction

The Producers of the epic `Harry Potter` series must be sighing collectively at their success in retaining their young cast in good form for what is their fifth movie outing. Apart from the unavoidable re-casting of Dumbledore after the first couple of films, this is pretty much business as usual cast wise, with one or two strong new additions like Tonks (Natalie Tena), and Death-Eater Bellatrix Lestrange (Bonham-Carter), looking every bit like the wife you always knew Tim Burton would end up with.

It was always going to be a tough one this, condensing the huge (arguably overlong) tome that was J.K. Rowling`s fifth volume in the seven book series. Whilst many Potter fans defended the book from its harsher critic`s proclamations that Rowling wasn`t getting the literary editing that she should, claiming that the level of atmospheric detail justified the number of pages, there would no such luck with the movie. Two and a bit hours is about as long as you can expect anyone to sit still for, and the Producers were determined to make it a single film so some serious script editing has been brought to play. And it shows.

No time for the usual humour to temper the darker aspects of the film, it just slavishly picks up the more obvious narrative timelines and plays them out in order. What else could they do? Curiously, despite this condensing of some seven hundred pages into a fifty page script, it also felt slower than previous outings with a long wait for an ending that could really only described as an anti-climax. I suppose I should add that by most yardsticks it was still an entertaining enough couple of hours, but when you`re in a series of features like this, comparisons with its excellent predecessors is inevitable.

Despite being, in my opinion, the least enjoyable of the five films so far, it was amongst the most advanced in terms of special effects. For the main part (and notwithstanding some suspect CGI in places), the effects were simply breath-taking. As were the sets, the costumes and props, the cast, the score, the lighting camera work and the superb editing and post production. But this time, the end result just didn`t quite equal the sum of all those excellent parts.This was certainly a tough assignment for new Director of the franchise, David Yates, who is better known for his TV work than blockbusting movie Directing.

The discs that I was sent looked to be standard issue, nicely housed in a double-disc amray case with an outer card sleeve, in common with some of the previous editions. The discs themselves though had some foreign writing on (East European?) and may not have been the discs issued for public consumption here in the UK.

The journey to get to the start of the film was a long and frustrating one with four screens of language options to get through before selecting `United Kingdom`. Once selected there were some non-optional trailers, including a lengthy one for HD and Blu-Ray. (It struck me as I watched these that this fifth Potter outing would undoubtedly look very good indeed in wither of these formats). Then finally the main menu options which included the film, selection of scenes and subtitle options.

All extras were housed on the second disc and are covered later in this review.

When the movie started, with that fantastic Potter score, I almost felt a tingle of excitement mix with the glow of anticipation. Like one of Pavlov`s dogs, the music had me salivating for a good Potter movie and the early scenes didn`t disappoint.

The story picks up, as usual, with Harry (Radcliffe) on holiday from Hogwarts, staying with his `cousin`, the objectionable and overweight `Dudley` (Harry Melling). Harry (looking five years older than his previous outing) is being bullied by Dudley and some of his mates "Where is your Mum Potter? Is she dead?" they taunt cruelly. Harry starts to lose his temper momentarily and the sky suddenly darkens. What follows would certainly frighten the under 10`s, making the 12 rating a sensible one, though it turns out to be possibly the biggest thrill in the movie, surpassing even the later scenes with Voldemort which are disappointingly less frightening than you might hope given the two-hour build up! Dementors are on the loose and hunting Harry, nearly sucking the life-force out of him and leaving Dudley a sandwich short of a picnic. The scenes are reminiscent of the Dark Riders in `LOTR` and are genuinely chilling.

Shaking the Dementors off, Harry is then `rescued` by a team including `Mad Eye Moody` and back in non-Muggle country findsvhimself facing charges of using magic (against the Dementors) which Cornelius Fudge, Minister for Magic (a Voldemort denialist played by Robert Hardy) is determined to make stick.

Harry gets off thanks to some clever legal `wizardry` from Dumbledore but he soon learns that a group of officials have been blackening his name all summer, meaning that other students are wary of him again when he returns to Hogwarts.

Fortunately for Harry, his `Godfather` Sirius Black understands the situation perfectly and offers Harry his usual undying support.

Defence against the Dark Arts teacher Dolores Umbridge (a smiling `mumsy` sort who is actually a cruel sadist who has been put in the school by fellow-denialist Fudge to watch Dumbledore and his cohorts) tells the class that they no longer have any need to practice practical magic so will only be teaching theory so Harry and his pals decide to practice on their own with Harry the natural teacher. Soon the friends are ready for the inevitable confrontation with Voldemort and his legion of followers.

The movie, like the book, rather unsubtly tries to bring Harry out of his early adolescence and into early manhood, with his first real on-screen `snog`. It`s also made him angrier and more political than ever, though I found the constant McCarthy Era / Nazi references too `pat` and rather clumsy in the main. (Check out Cornelius Fudges Nuremburg style banners in the Ministry for example).It doesn`t quite get in the way of what is a just good old-fashioned story-telling though does serve as a reminder that Rowling may be the most successful author in the world financially, but her books are full of derivative contrivances, almost a patchwork of the best bits of other people`s work. Which is maybe why they work so well.

Video

As you`d expect, this is a visually stunning picture (2.35:1) very much in the mould of previous outings. Personally I found the effects and the staging / scenery to be generally very impressive, though arguably not quite up to those in the previous film (`Goblet`). Some of the CGI was a little suspect (Grawp was a bit old school to say the least) though generally they do the trick. It might be worth mentioning that a fellow-reviewer had line definition problems when viewing some of the CGI on a large LCD, though it was not a fault I could replicate on either a 19" LCD or a 50" Plasma. He also mentioned some quite excessive grain on some sequences which on a second viewing I noticed much more than when I first viewed the film. These look like standard grading grains, added to blur the line between the actual take and the silky smoothness of digital CGI. Whatever the case, it had me wondering how much better this might all look on Blu-Ray or HD. Which is the first time that has happened. Oh dear…

Audio

A superbly rendered 5.1 soundtrack, from the familiar score through to the multitude of spot effects (often coming from the rears) and the brilliantly recorded dialogue. When watching the deleted scenes, the only interesting element to me was hearing the actually recorded sound, which sounded very lively indeed. I`m guessing all dialogue is dubbed over the original takes, which is quite a credit to the cast who do a sterling job, even in the relatively sterile surrounds of a dubbing studio.

Features

There is a second disc to house all the extras, though it was another trawl through language choices to get there.

TRAILING TONKS - this is the best of the features showing the very `actressy` Natalia Tena (Nymphadora Tonks) roaming around the studio visiting various sets and production departments. This is really quite a fascinating insight into the work that goes into creating a feature like this, including a dedicated `wand` choreographer, a graphic design department recreating all the newspapers, posters and bits of print that appear in the film, the effects department and so on. You may want to hit the fast forward once Natalia treats us to some of her own singing in her trailer though in general a fascinating insight imaginatively done.

ADDITIONAL SCENES
Yep - the bits that didn`t make the final cut presented here in random order, creating the ultimate in pointless viewing. Several are only a sentence in length.

HIDDEN SECRETS OF HARRY POTTER
This is a real fan pleasing documentary which explores the significance of `Phoenix` in the context of the overall series.

MAGIC OF EDITING
This is a fun and informative piece, featuring Director David Yates and Editor Mark Day, that shows how a scene is constructed using different shots from different angles. It also highlights how important the effects and music are in bringing the final piece alive.
There`s also a `faux-editing` facility here where you can select the shots to create a finished sequence.

HALF-BLOOD PRINCE SNEAK PREVIEW
A DVD-Rom feature that lets you get a peak at some footage from the next picture online.

TRAILERS
There is a trailer for a Harry Potter Quiz DVD as well as a couple of video games.

Conclusion

A new Harry Potter DVD is usually cause for much celebration in my house, guaranteed several viewings and a great chance for the whole family to gather together for an increasingly rare `all of us in one room at the same time` movie watching ritual. Only this time it wasn`t quite the same.

The acid test of a good family film is how much the children enjoyed it. Mine generally have a very positive and uncritical view of films, declaring most as `brilliant`, and a Harry Potter film is usually top of the class.

So what went wrong? Well, in truth my oldest daughter has paralleled Harry in terms of growing up and is now 15. Maybe she`s going through some of the same angst-ridden difficulties as Harry. But that doesn`t explain why my 12 year old also gave this one a luke-warm reception.

I think the truth is that, despite this being a well-made, lavishly produced piece of high-class entertainment, it never quite lived up to the expectations set by previous outings. Lacking the humour and fun of its predecessors, its slightly convoluted and slow-moving story never delivered the pay off that we`d all so patiently waited for. In short - the ending was something of an anti-climax.

Judged by its own yardstick, I felt this was the weakest movie yet. By any other standards though you could argue that it`s still perfectly good, value for money entertainment.

The DVD (despite its irritating language selector at the outset) was top-notch with a high quality transfer, and a nice set of entertaining and informative extras.

If you have stuck with the franchise for the previous four outings then now probably isn`t the time to stop. Just don`t expect much more than another bridging stone to the grand finale (two movies down the line) which I hope will deliver a better ending than this one did.