Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (2007)
Score: 4 / 5
After Michael Gambon's involvement as Dumbledore, this movie shows that director David Yates is the second best thing to happen to the Harry Potter franchise. He crafts this film as the series game-changer; as his tagline says, "The Rebellion Begins." Yates ushers us into his fresh storytelling style while cranking up the energy and scope of the film in preparation for the remaining films, all of which are much heavier, broader, and more complex than any we've yet seen. Order of the Phoenix is especially noteworthy because Yates and his team adapt their masterful script from Rowling's largest and talkiest book. Dialogue and pacing are both especially strong in this installment, as is Nicholas Hooper's fabulous score (the Umbridge theme and Weasley twins' theme are sheer magic).
Daniel Radcliffe presents us with his best performance yet as he turns Harry into a real person; intensely psychological, his every moment on screen is taut with his unuttered tension. Harry is finally a man (at fifteen years old, weirdly enough), and Radcliffe owns it by showing us that he can and will succeed as a leading man even after this series. Rupert Grint, meanwhile, takes a graceful and mature step back as Ron in a similarly more human performance. Emma Watson, as ever, is perfect. Matthew Lewis (Neville Longbottom) steps up as a significant ensemble member in his biggest screen time since Sorcerer's Stone. A new addition to the student cast, Evanna Lynch skillfully introduces us to the compassionate and nutty Luna Lovegood.
A revamped cast of adults features a stylized Order of the Phoenix: Natalia Tena and George Harris ably (and briefly) step in as Tonks and Kingsley, respectively. Alan Rickman (Snape), Brendan Gleeson (Moody), Mark Williams and Julie Walters (Arthur and Molly Weasley), and David Thewlis (Lupin) reprise their roles in solid supporting fashion, and all feel firmly connected to their characters as they approach the series conclusion. Gary Oldman happily commands a bit more screen time, and becomes a lovingly paternal Sirius before his end. Helena Bonham Carter shows up as a mad Bellatrix Lestrange, alongside the slippery Jason Isaacs and vicious Ralph Fiennes, in a trio of fabulously wicked baddies. Of course, the real highlight of the film is Imelda Staunton's turn as Rowling's best villain. Staunton and Yates turn Dolores Umbridge from the book's deliciously wicked toad into an unbalanced, power-mad sadist; her absolute takeover of Hogwarts is arguably more horrifying than in the book, and Staunton's skill in layering her character is the stuff of nightmares.
Phoenix drips with intelligence from its opening shot. The beauty of the film lies in its details, from the troll-foot umbrella stand in Grimmauld Place to the dust coating the Hog's Head pub. The thestral design is lovely, the new Patronus charms are great, and the Room of Requirement is exciting. In fact, the whole Dumbledore's Army sequence, from their origin in Hogsmeade right through Christmas and getting caught by Umbridge, steals the film as a celebration of youth, independence, and a maturing sense of rebellion. The phenomenal Ministry of Magic sets are arrestingly beautiful, and together with the Room of Requirement make up the most cinematic sets in the series; thankfully, we will see plenty more of the Ministry.
Yates and his team, in setting up the final Potter films, change the wizarding world aesthetic in several noteworthy ways. My favorite is their tool of narration via newspaper, with a lot of exposition being filtered through a heavily stylized medium that becomes a character in itself. They also draw attention to more awkward humor, akin to that in Prisoner but grounded in real adolescent emotions, and find that it works well because it treats the characters as more realistic and psychological beings. And the dialogue still has great heightened moments: "It's like Hogwarts wants us to fight back," Harry declares upon commencing Dumbledore's Army in the memory of past heroes. "If they could do it, why not us?"
Fewer new costumes are introduced here, and the camerawork is simple but solid, but the film features great lighting. Yates carefully controls the atmosphere primarily through lighting and occasionally picturesque visuals, as we see when Dumbledore intervenes in Trelawney's sacking. Atmosphere reaches an ethereal climax in the Department of Mysteries and the Hall of Prophecy, where Rowling's chillingly realized descriptions become a veritable maze as chaos descends. The entire final fight is gripping, in fact, from the Death Eaters' appearance through Voldemort's departure; my only complaint is that the combatants fly, which is visually mesmerizing but logistically problematic.
A few less-successful elements fall by the wayside, as none are particularly crucial to this story. The broomstick flight to Grimmauld Place flirts with wizarding legality and feels quite foolhardy. And Grawp feels strangely unnecessary, like a last-minute addition; a shame, because the book allows lots of room for discussion about humans, part-humans, and intelligent creatures between its characters' interactions with house-elves, centaurs, werewolves, and giants. Finally, and most troubling, though Dumbledore and Voldemort star in a spectacular duel, their wands connect briefly. Presumably their wands do not share the same core, and it seems unlikely that Dumbledore would magically induce Voldemort's wand to regurgitate its previous spells, so why does this happen? It seems that other spells used in wizards' duels (as we see in subsequent films, too) produce an effect similar to priori incantatem, or at least Yates wants us to think that because he likes the resulting spectacle.
IMDb: The Order of the Phoenix
* * * * * * *
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (2009)
Score: 5 / 5
Director David Yates knocks this one out of the park. Most importantly, this film is one of my favorites simply because it reminds us that these kids are kids and that they are still at school; those little details seem to have gotten lost since Prisoner of Azkaban. This is the first time we see a Potions class (besides Snape's introductory lecture in Sorcerer's Stone), and we thankfully see some great Quidditch again. Sadly, we don't see Snape's Defense against the Dark Arts class, but we got a fair hint of it in Prisoner.
The actors get a bit more stylized in this film, rather like in Prisoner. This is their last go at being students -- at being kids -- and they nail it. I cry through the whole movie, mostly due to its hilarious awkwardness. Daniel Radcliffe (Harry) has been quoted as saying this is his own least favorite performance, but from my seat, he continues his leading-man-material streak from Order of the Phoenix with a campy, comic, and ultimately brutal sense of himself as a young man in a changing world. Emma Watson (Hermione) and Rupert Grint (Ron) follow his lead and excel as lovestruck teenagers in the grips of raging hormones. The other students follow suit in similar patterns: Tom Felton's Draco Malfoy is surprisingly subtle, cruel, and sympathetic in turns; Jessie Cave introduces us to Lavender Brown with stunning energy; and Freddie Stroma shows perfect timing and unnervingly erotic screen presence as Cormac McLaggen. Unfortunately, Bonnie Wright (Ginny Weasley) shows us that she doesn't have what it takes to match the creative abilities of her castmates; her toneless delivery and emotional disconnect reach an all-time low in this, her most screen time in the series.
Michael Gambon (Dumbledore) especially steals the film with his gentle compassion and brave desperation, and he achieves an ethereal quality that I can't quite describe but which deserves more praise than it has received. His sudden, funny appearance, under a "Divine Magic" advertisement slogan, starts him on a dynamic journey that unfortunately ends in tear-jerking slow-mo fashion. Jim Broadbent charms us as Horace Slughorn and his fabulous facial expressions. His parties feature a lot of the awkward that makes this film great; the amount of youthful energy in this film makes up for the whole series' efforts to hurry Harry & Co. into adulthood. Alan Rickman's portrayal of Snape reaches a new height here, and his brooding performance conceals far more than it reveals.
Yates views this film differently than his previous installment; Half-Blood Prince features a dreamlike quality that provides a nice contrast to the more youthful, comedic characters. The intensely graded colors and limited palette make the film uniquely sensual, and the killer lighting filtered through hazy air tells a story all on its own. Cinematographer Bruno Delbonnel layers his shots with dazzling complexity, both rich wideshot visuals as well as crystal clear closeups. His visions are precise and calculated, with only one shot per image, highlighting his economical approach to the series' cinematic masterpiece. Nicholas Hooper again knocks his score out of the park.
I still don't particularly like that Yates has his witches and wizards fly (presumably without broomsticks), but the Death Eater attack at the beginning is spectacular, partly due to the trailing black smoke. When Dumbledore Apparates with Harry, we see a subtly dark, very uncomfortable experience; the revised Pensieve similarly feels strange and edgy. Thus we see that the magic Dumbledore happily uses to clean Slughorn's house in "fun" style is not the only kind of magic at work in this world; fitting, because with the introduction of Half-Blood Prince's dangerous invented spells and Voldemort's Horcruxes, we need to recognize the visceral horror Harry must face.
For arguably the series' darkest film yet, this movie is a mine of comedic gems. Dumbledore's softly camped delivery in his first scene, the longshot up the Weasley staircase as everyone wonders passively where Harry may be, and seeing Weasley's Wizard Wheezes only get the ball rolling. The Potions class is flawless, Ron's bout of drug-induced lovesickness (I'm sorry, but I call it his "drunk in love" scene), Aragog's funeral, and Harry's intoxication by Felix Felicis are some hilarious moments. Comedy gracefully subsides, though, in transcendent scenes such as Harry, Snape, and Dumbledore atop the Astronomy Tower, and of course Voldemort's cave.
The Pensieve memories are similarly great, it's just sad (but a wise move for Yates's team) that we see so few of them. Some have criticized the Death Eaters' attack on the Burrow, but it undoubtedly makes the Death Eaters more dangerous and more personal to the film's audience. My main problem with Half-Blood Prince is the lack of a fight at the end; it seems incredible that the Death Eaters could so easily infiltrate Hogwarts and depart. It's not as if Dumbledore would have left the school unguarded, especially knowing as he did that someone was attempting to assassinate him, and we even see McGonagall shooing students from an open courtyard. So how can the Death Eaters get from the Room of Requirement to the Astronomy Tower, the Great Hall, and out onto the grounds before anyone finally confronts them? It is quite unsatisfying, but Harry's duel with Snape somewhat makes up for it.
The actors get a bit more stylized in this film, rather like in Prisoner. This is their last go at being students -- at being kids -- and they nail it. I cry through the whole movie, mostly due to its hilarious awkwardness. Daniel Radcliffe (Harry) has been quoted as saying this is his own least favorite performance, but from my seat, he continues his leading-man-material streak from Order of the Phoenix with a campy, comic, and ultimately brutal sense of himself as a young man in a changing world. Emma Watson (Hermione) and Rupert Grint (Ron) follow his lead and excel as lovestruck teenagers in the grips of raging hormones. The other students follow suit in similar patterns: Tom Felton's Draco Malfoy is surprisingly subtle, cruel, and sympathetic in turns; Jessie Cave introduces us to Lavender Brown with stunning energy; and Freddie Stroma shows perfect timing and unnervingly erotic screen presence as Cormac McLaggen. Unfortunately, Bonnie Wright (Ginny Weasley) shows us that she doesn't have what it takes to match the creative abilities of her castmates; her toneless delivery and emotional disconnect reach an all-time low in this, her most screen time in the series.
Michael Gambon (Dumbledore) especially steals the film with his gentle compassion and brave desperation, and he achieves an ethereal quality that I can't quite describe but which deserves more praise than it has received. His sudden, funny appearance, under a "Divine Magic" advertisement slogan, starts him on a dynamic journey that unfortunately ends in tear-jerking slow-mo fashion. Jim Broadbent charms us as Horace Slughorn and his fabulous facial expressions. His parties feature a lot of the awkward that makes this film great; the amount of youthful energy in this film makes up for the whole series' efforts to hurry Harry & Co. into adulthood. Alan Rickman's portrayal of Snape reaches a new height here, and his brooding performance conceals far more than it reveals.
Yates views this film differently than his previous installment; Half-Blood Prince features a dreamlike quality that provides a nice contrast to the more youthful, comedic characters. The intensely graded colors and limited palette make the film uniquely sensual, and the killer lighting filtered through hazy air tells a story all on its own. Cinematographer Bruno Delbonnel layers his shots with dazzling complexity, both rich wideshot visuals as well as crystal clear closeups. His visions are precise and calculated, with only one shot per image, highlighting his economical approach to the series' cinematic masterpiece. Nicholas Hooper again knocks his score out of the park.
I still don't particularly like that Yates has his witches and wizards fly (presumably without broomsticks), but the Death Eater attack at the beginning is spectacular, partly due to the trailing black smoke. When Dumbledore Apparates with Harry, we see a subtly dark, very uncomfortable experience; the revised Pensieve similarly feels strange and edgy. Thus we see that the magic Dumbledore happily uses to clean Slughorn's house in "fun" style is not the only kind of magic at work in this world; fitting, because with the introduction of Half-Blood Prince's dangerous invented spells and Voldemort's Horcruxes, we need to recognize the visceral horror Harry must face.
For arguably the series' darkest film yet, this movie is a mine of comedic gems. Dumbledore's softly camped delivery in his first scene, the longshot up the Weasley staircase as everyone wonders passively where Harry may be, and seeing Weasley's Wizard Wheezes only get the ball rolling. The Potions class is flawless, Ron's bout of drug-induced lovesickness (I'm sorry, but I call it his "drunk in love" scene), Aragog's funeral, and Harry's intoxication by Felix Felicis are some hilarious moments. Comedy gracefully subsides, though, in transcendent scenes such as Harry, Snape, and Dumbledore atop the Astronomy Tower, and of course Voldemort's cave.
The Pensieve memories are similarly great, it's just sad (but a wise move for Yates's team) that we see so few of them. Some have criticized the Death Eaters' attack on the Burrow, but it undoubtedly makes the Death Eaters more dangerous and more personal to the film's audience. My main problem with Half-Blood Prince is the lack of a fight at the end; it seems incredible that the Death Eaters could so easily infiltrate Hogwarts and depart. It's not as if Dumbledore would have left the school unguarded, especially knowing as he did that someone was attempting to assassinate him, and we even see McGonagall shooing students from an open courtyard. So how can the Death Eaters get from the Room of Requirement to the Astronomy Tower, the Great Hall, and out onto the grounds before anyone finally confronts them? It is quite unsatisfying, but Harry's duel with Snape somewhat makes up for it.
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