Rankings Table for the Harry Potter films, to date
1. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
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2. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
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3. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
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4. Harry Pottetr and the Chamber of Secrets
5. Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone
Artistically, if not commercially, the cinematic adaptations of J.K. Rowling's excellent (despite their popularity) works have met with mixed success. While no film in the series is exactly bad, the first two in particular only capture the spirit of the novels intermittently. On the opposite end of the spectrum, we have Alfonso Cuaron's masterful third installment, which, to this viewer at least, is the only film so far to completely and rousingly live up to the source material - not to mention its being one of the greatest family blockbusters ever made. Cuaron's achievements did not stop at bringing to life the novels' sense of magical wonder in a way none of the other directors so far have managed, mostly through a child-like-wonder quality to the visuals - notable in the way details such as the changing of the seasons are foregrounded, moving the plot forward while adding invaluable colour. His masterstroke was in capturing the emotional quality of the books - the film's autumnal, overcast but luminous visuals mirroring Harry's increasingly dreadful awareness of his responsibilities. Cuaron understood Harry's increasing maturity, his first triumphant steps into adulthood and freedom shackled by his uncertainties, and his relationships with the paternal figures of Remus Lupin and Sirius Black (and the link to a lost past they represent), and it was his pitch-perfect rendition of these elements that made his film so successful.
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix falls in between the two extremes. It never matches the greatness of Prisoner of Azkaban, but it comes a comfortable second, surpassing the Columbus films as well as Mike Newell's flawed and uneven, but enjoyable, Goblet of Fire. Director David Yates, aided by DoP Slawomir Idziak, belies his relative feature-film inexperience, giving the film a distinctive dark palette and visual style. Though he does not demonstrate the relentless inventiveness that Cuaron brought to the series, an impressive eye for visuals is evident from the opening sequence, set in a playing field as a strange storm approaches.
Narratively, the film trims down the lengthy, somewhat meandering novel into a relentless, lean, plot-driven race towards the final confrontation. While I have to disagree with the general opinion that the novel's numerous digressions and side-plots make it the weakest in the series (it is one of my favourites, for precisely those reasons), there's no denying that the changes are necessary and make a perfect fit for the cinematic medium.
Order of the Phoenix is the most political of Rowling's novels, and the film's screenplay emphasizes this subtext, making the film explicitly one about political intrigue, conspiracies and power-struggles, propaganda and media spin, and government interference in education. Yates has talked about this as his major fingerprint on the franchise, and while it is an important element in the development of the series, illustrating as it does Harry's growing awareness of the possibilities for the corruption of the establishment, the manipulation of the truth and the deception of appearances, it does seem to be slightly over-played in the film - twice is too much for the news headlines montage. As personified in the delightfully hateful figure of Dolores Umbridge (played note-perfectly by Imelda Staunton), however, these themes make for priceless boo-hiss material, especially for anyone who has ever grown up in a strict Church school.
The film builds inexorably towards a riveting final half-hour that is our first glimpse at the epic conflict that has always been just out of sight in the series, and Yates handles it superbly. This sequence is exciting, breath-taking, rousing, and ultimately tragic, as the scope of the battle grows increasingly higher, culminating in an astounding duel between Dumbledore and Voldemort that constitutes one of the series' cinematic highlights. At this points, the film's minor flaws - some sub-par CGI shots, occasionally rushed plotting - are forgiven, and the film becomes a more than worthy addition to the Potter canon, and one of the summer's best blockbusters.
