Harry potter and the order of the phoenix online

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

Fantasy 2007 2 hr 18 min iTunes

Available on Peacock, iTunes

Now in his fifth year at Hogwarts, Harry (Daniel Radcliffe) learns that many in the wizarding community do not know the truth of his encounter with Lord Voldemort. Cornelius Fudge, minister of Magic, appoints his toady, Dolores Umbridge, as Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher, for he fears that professor Dumbledore will take his job. But her teaching is deficient and her methods, cruel, so Harry prepares a group of students to defend the school against a rising tide of evil.

Fantasy 2007 2 hr 18 min iTunes

PG-13

Starring Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint, Emma Watson

Director David Yates

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Action & Adventure , Fantasy , Mystery & Thriller , Kids & Family

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Returning for his fifth year of study at Hogwarts, Harry is stunned to find that his warnings about the return of Lord Voldemort have been ignored. Left with no choice, Harry takes matters into his own hands, training a small group of students to defend themselves against the dark arts.

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Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
Ultimate Blu-ray Edition

Year: 2007
Rating: PG-13
Runtime: 2 HRS, 18 MIN

Director: David Yates
Starring: Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson, Rupert Grint, Robbie Coltrane, Michael Gambon, Maggie Smith, Alan Rickman, Imelda Staunton, Bonnie Wright, Tom Felton, Evanna Lynch, Matthew Lewis, Emma Thompson, Gary Oldman, David Thewlis, Brendan Gleeson, Jason Isaacs, and Ralph Fiennes

Film Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
Video Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
Audio Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
Extras: 3 out of 5 stars
Overall Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

The Film

The Dark Lord returned, a boy died, and Harry was at the center of it all. That's where we left off when Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire ended. We're now past the midway point in the franchise. At the time of this film's release six years had passed since the release of Sorcerer's Stone and that film feels a world away now. Harry's world continues down its dark path that was laid down in Prisoner of Azkaban, the growing pains that emerged in Goblet of Fire continue, and now the magical world is taking on a more political feel.

Harry is despondent; he's stuck again at the Dursley's (his Aunt and Uncle), cut off from his friends, and is still reeling from the death of Cedric Diggory (Robert Pattinson) and the rise of Voldemort at the end of the Tri-Wizard Tournament. No one wants to believe that Lord Voldemort has returned and the Ministry of Magic (Wizard Government to all that are uninformed) and press are working hard to discredit him in the eyes of the public. Much to Harry's dismay the new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher is a Ministry official that's hell bent on controlling Hogwart's and its students. To make matter worse, Harry is experiencing strange nightmares that seem tied to the mysterious object that Voldemort is searching for.

I have very mixed feelings about Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. There are several aspects of the film that I really like and there are several things about the film that annoy me considerably. Do I like the film? Yes. Do I love the film? No. Is it a film that personifies the term "Missed Opportunity?" Absolutely, possibly more than any film in the entire series. I try not to judge the Harry Potter films against the Harry Potter novels; I'm not an avid reader by any means so I always try to judge a film just as a film since that's my area of "expertise." That's hard to do with this film; Order of the Phoenix is the longest Potter book but is the shortest of the first seven films. It feels rushed, some of that has to do with the new screen writer Michael Goldenberg. This is the only Potter film including the soon to be released Deathly Hallows Part 2 not to have Steve Kloves as its screenwriter. He does an admirable job considering he's coming into the franchise halfway through but the film feels rushed and strangely convenient. There's so much going on in the book, I know sacrifices have to be made to turn an 870 page book into a film of reasonable length. With that said, I feel that too much was excised from the final product and while the movie moves along at a brisk pace I get the constant feeling that something's missing. So much of the film is focused on just advancing the story forward that there's not a lot of opportunity to enjoy what's going because you're being hit over the head with lots of exposition. What do I think led to this rushed feeling? I believe that Order of the Phoenix might have fallen prey to penny pinching executives at Warner Brothers that wanted to get the maximum amount of showtimes per day by cutting this film to a paltry 2 hour 18 minutes which is quite short by Potter standards. In addition to the new screenwriter a new director takes over as well; David Yates, who was best known as a gritty TV movie director steps into his first major theatrical film. While I definitely wouldn't use the word "overwhelmed" I would say he made some rookie mistakes by imploring some lazy film making techniques namely in the form of montages. There are two montages in the film; by comparison there are zero montages throughout the first four films. They just don't fit into the flow of the film well and feel out of place in the series as a whole. I can't help but think that replacing the five minutes of montages with 15-20 minutes of actual story would have benefited this film immensely.

I don't want you to think that I don't like Order of the Phoenix because I do. The film succeeds in many ways and sets up the second half of the Harry Potter saga well. You can look at the Harry Potter films individually, in pairs (1-2, 3-4, 5-6, 7-8), or in halves (1-4, 5-8). If you can remember back to Sorcerer's Stone, that film had the huge task of introducing the audience to Harry's world. The first four films dealt with the prospect of Voldemort returning. Order of the Phoenix has a similar task to Sorcerer's Stone because it has to introduce the audience to Harry's world with Voldemort in it and the the next three films deal with that. Order of the Phoenix introduces the audience to the politics of the Wizarding World. Harry is not widely believed after finishing the Tri-Wizard Tournament and his fight against Voldemort and is being accused of being a liar and is being smeared in the news. I find the political aspect of Phoenix's story to be one of its best strong points and its nice to get a larger glimpse of the world outside of Hogwarts. Another strong point of the film is it's final forty-five minutes because it has some of the most exciting scenes of the series so far and almost makes me forget about some of the other shortcomings I mentioned earlier. The CGI used in Order of the Phoenix continues to impress. There's the occasional moment in the film where the CGI isn't perfect which I think comes from them over reaching what could be accomplished with computer effects in 2007. 95% of the effects are outstanding and the remaining 5% are good; there wasn't anything that made me cringe so please don't take my criticism too seriously. While series newcomer David Yates made some mistakes in regard to pacing he does a great job creating a wonderful look for this film. I've praised Alsonso Cuarón and Mike Newell's direction in the past two films, I would say David Yate's would fall somewhere in between their looks. I don't think Cuarón's looked could be topped but Yate's does a great job and gives Order of the Phoenix a wonderful look that is both dark and haunting while still beautiful.

As much as Prisoner of Azkaban was a film that changed the tone of the franchise, Order of the Phoenix changed how we perceive the cast. The Harry Potter films at their heart have always focused on Harry, Ron, and Hermione with most of the remaining focus being on the adult characters (i.e. Dumbledore, Snape, or McGonagall) relationships with the trio. That however changes to some degree in Order of the Phoenix; Neville Longbottom, Ginny Weasley, the Weasley twins, newcomer Luna Lovegood, and other students become more integral to the plot. Most of these characters have been with the series since the beginning but now have a little more to do than just stand around. Harry also gets his first girlfriend in the form of Cho Chang (Katie Leung) which creates a cute moment that reminds the audience that Harry isn't quite all grown up yet. The main newcomer to the cast is Imelda Staunton (Vera Drake) as Dolores Umbridge the new Defense Against the Dark Arts and the film's secondary villain. She's an absolute treat but is also terribly infuriating which is sort of the point of her character. She's wears pink and wants to believe she's sweeter than sweet but she's the complete opposite. Stephen King described her character in the book as the "greatest make-believe villain to come along since Hannibal Lecter." While she doesn't eat her victims liver with fava beans and a nice butterbeer she does live up to King's praise because she's quite horrible and you really root against her. In a smaller supporting role is Helena Bonham Carter as Bellatrix Lestrange, one of Voldemort's most loyal and dangerous Death Eaters. I've never been a big fan of Helena (aside from Fight Club) but she plays Bellatrix, it's not a glamorous role but she embraces it and she seems properly strange and crazy. Alan Rickman of course returns as Severus Snape and is finally given more to do than just scowl at Harry in his most important role since Azkaban. Speaking of Azkaban; Gary Oldman and David Thewlis return which was an extremely welcome addition since they're two of my favorite characters. Due to the plot Michael Gambon's role as Dumbledore is smaller than in past films and that loss is felt throughout the film but by the end who'll almost forget he was gone.

While not the strongest entry into the Harry Potter series Order of the Phoenix isn't the weakest entry either. The new screenwriter and new director combined to make the perfect storm of film making mistakes in the form of pacing and montages that keep Order of the Phoenix from reaching is highest potential which is unfortunate because it had the makings of being one of the best film entries. Director David Yates does a nice a job creating a very pretty yet haunting film and it does advance the story along and sets up the remaining films up nicely. It's nice to see the younger cast taking on a larger role in the film and the two new cast additions are both effective villains. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix is sort of mixed bag but it's still a decent film that ranks somewhere in the middle of the Harry Potter pack.

The Blu-ray

This is getting very infuriating; the Ultimate Edition sets come out in pairs (1-2, 3-4, 5-6) and each release has slightly different packaging than the last pair to be released. If you remember back to my review of Prisoner of Azkaban I talked about how the UE's (Ultimate Editions) for Azkaban & Goblet were slightly taller and had a lenticular cover instead of an embossed cardboard cover. This pissed me off since I like everything to match on my DVD racks and now the most recent UE's don't match either of the previous releases. So what changed this time? Instead of being three disc releases like the first four UE releases, Order of the Phoenix (and Half Blood Prince) only have two discs. They only have two discs because unlike previous films they were released on Blu-ray and DVD at the same time and didn't have to port over the DVD extras to the Blu-ray releases so there's not as much overflow. That means that the boxes are skinnier than the three disc UE releases and therefore don't match the previous sets in a new way. I would have preferred them to stuff a blank piece of cardboard in the box to pad out the width of the set so that they would match the previous four sets.

As I stated in the Azkaban review this isn't a deal breaker for me but it's frustrating that Warner Brothers can't stick with box design so my UE Collection would look nice and match instead of being a mismatched mess. I can only assume that the final UE releases for Deathly Hallows Part 1 and Part 2 will differ from these sets in one way or another. Any guesses on how they'll differ; height, width, discs, cover art?

Just like previous sets you get the character cards (Luna Lovegood, Dolores Umbridge), a digital copy of the film, and the 48 page collectible book. Continuing the trend of the past several Ultimate Editions there isn't an Extended Cut of the film. Considering how much extra footage I've heard was shot it's disappointing not to see any new footage added back into shortest of the first seven films. I'm going to be quite annoyed if in a year or two Warner Brothers releases this film with an extended or director's cut after not offering it here.

Sizing up the video transfer for this release is quite easy, it's perfect. I gave Goblet of Fire a 5 out of 5 video score which I feel was fair but Order of the Phoenix looks even better. It's a stunning transfer that looks exactly like it did when I saw the film projected digitally in 2007. Black levels are great, detail is astonishing, and colors are appropriately represented. It's perfection in the form of a Blu-ray.

Though not as outright impressive as the video the 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio track is also wonderful. Order of the Phoenix may not have as many action sequences as its predecessor but it's no less impressive when given the chance. Rumbling bass and some great directionality are present when the action picks up and in the quieter scenes you'll be impressed with the subtlety the track can provide. No matter if it's a dementor attack, a classroom scene, or a fight to the death you'll find the dialogue crystal clear and easy to understand even at low volume levels.

Disc One features a PiP track hosted by Daniel Radcliffe. The track is quite informative and Daniel Radcliffe genuinely seems interested in presented the information to the audience. There's a lot of good information presented in the track but there are some long gaps that could annoy anyone that's just watched the movie straight through and is now watching the film with the commentary track on. All the major points are able to be viewed via the "Focus Points" feature that plays the PiP segments on their own individually or in a "Play All" mode. Disc two features the Creating the World of Harry Potter Part 5: Evolution documentary. This is a major improvement over the dull as dishwater Part 4 segment from Goblet of Fire. This segment dives into how everything from the actors, the castle, the logo, the effects, and the franchise as a whole has evolved since the first film. It's a fascinating segment and there are lots of before and after comparisons to be seen and it's one of my favorite segments so far. There are 11 minutes of deleted scenes presented in HD, none are exactly mind blowing and they're the same scenes that were on the original Blu-ray release in 2007. From what I've heard there's a lot more extra footage that still hasn't seen the light of day so it's disappointing not to see any of it presented here in this "Ultimate" Edition release. Two short featurettes are also presented in HD:

-Building the Magic: Behind the Sets of Harry Potter is 20 minutes long and goes in great detail on what goes into making the sets of the Harry Potter films special.
-Trailing Tonks is 19 minutes long and follows actress Natalia Tena as she gives a tour of Leavesden Studio where much of the Potter films are shot.

There are three SD featurettes; The Rebellion Begins, Behind the Magic, and Fullfilling a Prophecy. I took a quick peek at them and they're OK but we all know how I feel about standard definition extras and I think most fans will get most of what they need to know from the HD special features. Last but not least is a collection of Order of the Phoenix trailer presented in HD.
Impersonating a snake... pay no attention to my arms.

Conclusion

I consider this film to be the biggest missed opportunity of the franchise. It's not a bad film, it just never reaches the level of greatness that I think it could have reached. It's still better than the first two Potter films and this release has flawless video and audio presentations. I'm still pretty upset by the continuing packaging changes but the Creating the World of Harry Potter documentary is one of the series best so far so those almost balance each other out. If you just want to pick up the film you can purchase the single disc release that has almost identical video & audio and many of the special features (excluding the documentary) for about $10.

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