Harry Potter And The Order Of The Phoenix
Rating: ***
Dir: David Yates
With: Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson, Rupert Grint

A cinema in Glasgow, 2001, opening day of the first Harry Potter movie. The place is as packed with children as the streets are empty. It's like Old Firm match day for the under 10s. There's a boy a few rows in front, his eyes wider than those of the owls that are swooping across the screen. Every so often his lips move as he narrates what's happening, willing the action to move in the way he remembers it from the book. When it does he smiles, entranced.

For a director there's pressure, and then there's taking on a Harry Potter movie. Tread softly, filmmaker, because you tread on many dreams. Three brave souls have taken the dare so far. In this, the fifth of seven, David Yates is in charge. With a background in television (State of Play, The Girl in the Cafe) and no blockbusters to his name, he was a very Potter choice, an outsider. Like a first-year Harry he rises to the challenge, and if he doesn't quite graduate with full honours it's not for want of trying.

In some ways, this was the toughest Potter so far. Each one claims to venture further into the heart of darkness, but the fifth book is a troubling business. Harry spends a fair bit of it furious at the position he's in, uncertain of his friends, his sanity, even his saintly father. A lot is asked of Daniel Radcliffe in the lead, so much that one half expects to see him channelling early De Niro. "You talkin' to me, Dumbledore? You talkin' to me?"

As we meet Harry again he's barely recognisable as the tousled youth roughed up by tragedy in The Goblet of Fire. Of all the special effects in the Potter films none packs a punch quite like the first sight of our ageing heroes. From being practically babies in the first film, Harry, Hermione and Ron are now young men and women. As for the Weasley twins, they look as if they should be selling mortgages by day and going home to the wives and kids at night.

Harry's newly acquired heft comes in handy when he fights off an attack near the suburban home he shares with his odious in-laws. That Dementors should be so bold as to come for him in Little Whinging is a sign that all is not well. There's worse to come when he returns to Hogwarts to find an odious new teacher, Dolores Umbridge (Imelda Staunton) has joined the staff. More troubling still, no one is taking seriously Harry's warnings that you know who is back.

Staunton is sublime as as the pocket-sized tyrant in pink who turns Hogwarts into a police state. Dolores is not just a madwoman, she's a very bad one, too. Her glee as Harry writes the lines: "I must not tell lies. I must not tell lies," only to have them burned into the back of his hand at the same time, is truly chilling. While hardly on a par with that other torture scene in a 12A film - the beating of a naked 007 in Casino Royale - this is strong stuff for a children's film. Radcliffe copes well, but then he generally does. In looks and performance, he's previously been the child-acting equivalent of Tim Henman: workmanlike, not terribly thrilling. Order of the Phoenix gives a glimpse of him raising his game to Murray levels.

His kiss with Cho - an event second only to Chas and Di's balcony smooch in the interest it has generated - is played sweet and low key. Like other important moments it is given just the right amount of time. Yates and his screenwriter Michael Goldenberg should be carried shoulder high through every cinema in the land for taking Rowling's breeze block of a novel and cutting several of its more leisurely episodes. At 138 minutes, Order of the Phoenix fairly rattles along. It's not often that is said of a Potter movie. Visually, Yates never seems like a TV bod struggling to make the leap to the big screen. While no Cuaron, he manages to conjure up the sense of a fantastic world lurking beneath the humdrum. Where Yates, like his predecessors, struggles is in dealing with what might be called the Potter legacy. Like a cross between Shakespeare and pantomime, the books and films have assumed a familiar routine. The journey to Hogwarts, the start of term speech in the great hall, the fight with Malfoy, the visit to Hagrid - all the rituals must be observed. When Voldemort appears it takes a superhuman effort not to shout: "He's behind you!" Like that enraptured boy in the cinema, the fans will take delight in the familiar. The less fanatical may stifle a yawn as they experience a distinct sense of Deja Potter.

Well, not quite. In keeping the focus tight on Harry and his turmoil, Yates has given the series a new, thrilling urgency. The difficulty is that with two films to go (Yates is doing the next one, too), HP5 could only ever be a transitional movie, a necessary stop on the way to more fascinating territory. While it will do great business at the box office, the real excitement is being reserved for the appearance of a certain tome out on Friday, July 20 at midnight. Like Harry versus Voldemort, the tussle between the new movie and the final book will be a battle royale. Don't be a Dolores on yourself - enjoy both.


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