Another quality effort even if it’s missing a little hocus pocus.
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (2007)
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted:230
Fresh:177
Rotten:53
Average Rating:6.8/10
Consensus: It's not easy to take the longest Harry Potter book and streamline it into the shortest HP movie, but director David Yates does a bang up job of it, creating an Order of the Phoenix that's entertaining and action-packed.
Runtime: 2 hrs 19 mins
Genre: Science-Fiction/Fantasy
US Box Office: $291,980,108
Synopsis: In the silver-screen adaptation of J.K. Rowling's HARRY POTTER AND THE ORDER OF THE PHOENIX, the fifth chapter in the beloved book series, everyone's favorite wizard-in-training (Daniel Radcliffe)... In the silver-screen adaptation of J.K. Rowling's HARRY POTTER AND THE ORDER OF THE PHOENIX, the fifth chapter in the beloved book series, everyone's favorite wizard-in-training (Daniel Radcliffe) finds himself in increasingly perilous situations. Not only is Harry in trouble with the Ministry of Magic for using his abilities outside of school, his trusted mentor, Professor Dumbledore (Michael Gambon), has grown distant, and an icy new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher, Dolores Umbridge (Imelda Staunton), has arrived to bring a frightening level of discipline to Hogwarts. And waiting in the shadows is the demonic Lord Voldemort (Ralph Fiennes), an ominous figure whose very existence is questioned by the powerful Ministry, leaving Harry and his friends--most notably Ron (Rupert Grint) and Hermione (Emma Watson)--to form a rebel group, Dumbledore's Army. Helmed by little-known British director David Yates and written by Michael Goldenberg (the first scribe to fill the boots of Steve Kloves), THE ORDER OF THE PHOENIX continues the darker tone of the two preceding POTTER installments and deftly follows Harry, Ron, and Hermione as they face new foes and impending adulthood. While Radcliffe, Grint, and Watson all continue to imbue their characters with vitality and complexity, Staunton steals the show as the strict, merciless Umbridge, though the story, which lacks some of the special-effects-heavy set pieces of past chapters, happily leaves room for other actors to shine, most notably Alan Rickman (as the ever-enigmatic Severus Snape), Gary Oldman (Sirius Black), David Thewlis (Remus Lupin), and Helena Bonham Carter (Bellatrix Lestrange). Another fine offering of POTTER movie magic, PHOENIX may not astound quite the way that THE PRISONER OF AZKABAN did, but it easily stands as one of the best films in the series. [More]
Starring: Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint, Emma Watson, Robbie Coltrane
Starring: Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint, Emma Watson, Robbie Coltrane, Ralph Fiennes, Michael Gambon, Richard Griffiths, Brendan Gleeson, Gary Oldman, Alan Rickman, Imelda Staunton, Helena Bonham-Carter, Robert Pattinson
Director: David Yates
Director: David Yates
Screenwriter: Michael Goldenberg
Producer: David Barron, David Heyman
Composer: Nicholas Hooper
Studio: Warner Bros.
Reviews for Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
Staunton magnificently personifies the banality of evil as Umbridge, all steely resolve and poisonous sugar.
The movie works the way a Harry Potter movie ought to. It's not perfect -- a few ends remain loose, a few characters get shafted -- but it's very good.
Dark as pitch: unsettling, unsettled, unresolved, and utterly remarkable.
David Yates and screenwriter Michael Goldenberg have successfully pared the unwieldy book down into something that works well enough that this film places third in my personal best of Potter movies list.
This is a gangly, confusing sprawl, and yet there are enough patches of beauty scattered throughout that it's impossible to reject it wholesale.
It is dark, it is more grown up, and its approaching end can be felt.
Easily the darkest of a series that has grown increasingly dim, Phoenix rises to the occasion, even if it doesn't fly quite as high as the previous two installments.
Just as Harry has grown into a leader of his Hogwarts classmates, Radcliffe has become the man who drives this series.
It seems that love and friendship are qualities worth rattling your wand over. En route, we can once more ooh-and-aah at the franchise's impressive array of acting talent.
There's still enough suspense built into the saga to keep us watching, but after five installments, this dazzling box office wizard is slowly running out of tricks.
Anyone expecting a rebirth of the Harry Potter film franchise in its fifth installment will find a disappointing dearth of cinematic magic.
It feels like Charlie Brown getting ready to kick the football that Lucy's holding. He's sure she's going to pull it away once again, but Charlie gives it another try anyway, because it's there, and who knows, maybe this time will be different.
It's inspiring to see Harry and his friends come into their own, organizing impromptu self-defense courses when their official curriculum is lacking, and pointedly crushing when they realize just how hard it is to fight city hall.
Order Of The Phoenix feels a little too complacent at times, though it has moments of visual wit, and it doesn't soft-pedal the dark mood that has eclipsed the series.
Weaves the beginning of the series' backend into maybe the best of the series to date leaving us in a state of anticipatory bliss of how it will all end.
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix is the work of a confident storyteller making an assured movie debut.
Given a choice between this and the navel-gazing of the novel, I'll take the short ride on a fast machine.
Whatever happened to the delight and, if you'll excuse the term, the magic in the Harry Potter series?
It feels like a placeholder, not because little happens but because so much plot must be served in order to set up subsequent events that there's no room for the gentle human moments that anchor Rowling's heroic fantasy epic to the everyday world.
Latest News for Harry Potter and the Order of the...
July 15, 2009:
RT Interview: David Yates on Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
When David Yates was hired to direct Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, fans took one look at his TV-heavy resume and panicked that he wouldn't be able to bring the same... More...
July 15, 2009:
RT Interview: Daniel Radcliffe on Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
19 year-old Daniel Radcliffe wants the world to know he's a grown-up now. It's tough to walk past a magazine stand on the eve of the release of the sixth Harry Potter film... More...
July 14, 2009:
RT Visits the Set of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
As RT is brought into Leavesden Studios, past a pair of workmen poring over blueprints for a large, conical tower with a tall spire roof, the sense that we're entering a... More...
December 15, 2008:
Exclusive: Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince - RT's Set Visit Preview
RT visited the set of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince recently to tour the studio and speak to the stars, and we thought we'd share a small teaser of our time at Hogwarts. More...
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