Harry Potter 5: A Step Down

As I waited for Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix to begin, I was treated to trailers for three consecutive films that were clearly in a Potter-esque vein. They dealt with plucky, pubescent heroes and heroines with hidden destinies suddenly thrust into magical worlds. Next to those derivative films (or at least their trailers), the new Harry Potter is, well, kind of boring.

The hype on this fifth installment is that it is a darker film with a more grown-up Harry Potter. This is true, but a darker tone shouldn't necessarily translate into a less entertaining film. In this case, it does.

As the film begins, Harry uses magic to defend himself against an attack by wraith-like creatures; this is apparently a violation of arcane wizard law, and he is put on trial for his crime. He is soon acquitted, but shunned because no one believes Harry's claim that his old nemesis Voldemort attacked him and is on the loose. To make matters worse, the beloved grandfatherly wizard Dumbledore is ousted from his position at the Hogwards magic school and replaced by cool fascistic menace in the form of Dolores Umbridge. Umbridge--decked out in prim and proper purple and with a creepy, vampiric Laura Bush facial expression--rules the halls of Hogwarts with an iron fist. Thus begins a political struggle within the magic-using community.

The trial of Harry Potter never seems like anything but the picayune time-wasting red herring it is. Is Harry really going to be put through the ringer for defending his life? And surely in a magical world of spells and enchantments of all sorts, there would be some way of knowing the circumstances of his attack-- not to mention whether Voldemort actually is on the prowl.

The three lead actors are up to the task, and the supporting cast (Gary Oldman, Alan Rickman, and Helena Bonham Carter, among others) are good as always, taking turns chewing scenery.The real problem is the script. There's too little going on in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix; the book it is based on runs nearly 900 pages, and I have to wonder what interesting material was left out so we could (repeatedly) see Harry train his friends in spellcasting and (repeatedly) see Umbridge undermine the students' lessons and spirits...

Perhaps die-hard Potterites will live and die by each turn of the story, but for me the politics of Hogwarts (and thus a large part of the film) simply isn't terribly interesting. Frankly, the question of whether anyone believes Harry when he says that Voldemort has returned just isn't compelling. Those who saw the last film (which will be just about everyone who sees this one) know that Mr. Shall-not-be-named is in fact back. It's just a matter of waiting for everyone else to catch up, and waiting for characters to catch up is not a particularly riveting thing to watch for two hours. The script never bothers to explain why the idea of Voldemort's return is so inconcievable, why everyone (including the magical newspaper The Daily Prophet) is so sure Harry is lying. The student rebellion plot is pretty by-the-numbers, and a few scenes of the iron-ruled Hogwarts school were strongly reminiscent of Pink Floyd's "Another Brick in the Wall (Part 2)" music video.

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix is the weakest of a generally good series; hopefully the next, and final, installment will redeem the story and restore the inertia and interest seen in the early films.