Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

Title: Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
Director: David Yates
Cast: Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson, Gary Oldman
Year: 2007
MPAA: Rated PG-13 for sequences of fantasy violence and frightening images.
Date of Review: December 26, 2007

There was a span of about two or three years during my life as a teenager where I felt increasingly conflicted about the person I am, and whether I really liked me. I would look at myself and wonder whether or not I would want to be friends with me, had I been someone else. Of course, my parents’ great wisdom - which I refused to accept at the time - turned out to be right. Everyone feels this way at some point in their life. It’s just part of being human, and of growing up. In fact, there are probably greater problems if one doesn’t ever questions their actions or their development as a person. Angst is one of those strange things where you can do all you want to try and help a teenager to see their lives more clearly, but in the end it is only they who can really understand their own inner workings.

It’s good that the Harry Potter films have been able to incorporate these feelings of disillusionment with ourselves and the world around us. Without this, they wouldn’t feel nearly as authentic as they do and, as a result, they surely wouldn’t be as popular as they are. After all what is a story if it doesn’t have some sort of personal connection to you? I’m all for rowdy, soulless entertainment - but for that, there is a time and a place. For a story in any medium to be truly great it has to grab you and touch your heart, making you feel like this story - however fantastic - is real. Peter Jackson did this wonderfully in the Lord of the Rings films, which feel so authentic at times that it seems perhaps these events really did happen sometime hundreds or thousands of years ago.

The Order of the Phoenix works best as a continuation of the events of The Prisoner of Azkaban - the third film in the series, and also quite arguably the best. Voldemort’s back and his army is growing stronger by the minute, dividing loyalties in the world of witches and wizards. Harry Potter is beginning to see elements of darkness creep into his life and his own personality - manifested physically in the form of hallucinations of Voldemort appearing randomly before his eyes. Knowing that Voldemort is gaining power, Potter is unsure of whether these visions are the Dark Lord’s doing, or simply Potter’s own personal demons slowly taking him over.

Throughout the course of the story we see the as so far hidden back-stories of many of the characters, revealing much about their nature and why they have such prominent characteristics. The most interesting thing about these revelations is that each one reveals something about them that seems totally unlike their character, yet simultaneously explains so much about why they are the way they are. In the end it’s all a rather unsubtle sort of "yin yan" message - good cannot exist without evil and vice versa. All good people have some evil in them as well, and the evil ones also have an inherent goodness.

But what the film lacks in subtlety of message it more than makes up for in poignancy. Like Prisoner of Azkaban, it has many scenes which are genuinely affecting - something which seems to be lacking in the recent boom of child-oriented fantasy adventure films. Scenes where Harry questions his actions and his own nature feel like a much more effective version of Anakin Skywalker’s descent into evil in the Star Wars prequels. And that’s not where the parallels between these two series’ end. It seems J. K. Rowling has based many of the story arcs and character types off of those found in Star Wars, with Harry Potter being sort of a mixture of Anakin and Luke Skywalker. This has been subtly acknowledged in the final conflicts of the last two films, which both feature duels where the wizards’ powers manifest themselves in coloured light beams. In The Goblet of Fire, Voldemort’s beam was green and Harry’s red, then in the final showdown of this latest installment, the beams are red and blue. We all remember that the red lightsaber was the signature of Darth Vader - previously Anakin Skywalker - so this is a nice little visual nod to those geeks among us who would see this as yet another symbol of Harry’s darkness within.

It’s great that the Harry Potter films continue to have something to offer beyond their special effects and imaginative "wizard technology" - which is admittedly cool, but not enough to carry a whole film. Daniel Radcliffe has been perfect in embodying both the heroic and venomous traits of Harry Potter, and the supporting characters remain rich and their ever-evolving back-stories are always adding a little more without feeling tacked-on. Since most films geared towards teenagers these days are mindless action romps or torturous gore-fests filled with "pretty people" getting naked at every chance they get, it’s good to know that someone can still make a film which fulfills one’s need for spectacle while also giving kids someone to relate to and grow up with.

8 / 10