Oh dear. At 870 pages, each more turgid than the last, the fifth and least successful instalment in J.K. Rowling’s saga was never going to translate easily into film. Much of The Order Of The Phoenix, as even the most ardent Potter acolytes will attest, is given over to meaningless detail and endless explanation. Like The Half Blood Prince, the equally meandering sixth volume, it’s less a proper book than a holding pattern, just stalling, stalling, stalling for the inevitable final showdown between Voldemort and Young Master Potter due two episodes along.
Then we have the Usual Problem. Nobody, it seems, is prepared to incur the wrath of middle-class children, unmarriageable women or Ms. Rowling herself. To date, only the third film in the franchise, The Prisoner Of Azkaban, has displayed anything like panache and even that title displayed a slavish adherence to the hallowed source. Sadly, Phoenix is woefully short on incident, leaving poor old TV graduate David Yates with the task of faithfully rendering very little indeed.
In the absence of any real narrative thrust – we sit around for two hours to learn that Voldemort is back, a point long since established – Phoenix concerns itself with interpersonal intricacies. The shifting teen tensions between Harry, Hermione, Ron, Cho Chang and endearingly batty newcomer Luna Lovegood (Evanna Lynch) are interesting, though reduced into bullet points. Other newly arrived characters, including Ms. Bonham Carter’s Bellatrix Lestrange, may be entirely obscured by several ill-timed blinks. Only Imelda Staunton’s maddeningly disagreeable headmistress is allowed the space to stamp her way into Potter lore. An unwelcome usurper for Dumbledore at Hogwarts, her ridiculously harsh regime deprives the youngsters of much-needed instruction in Defence against the Dark Arts.
Though trailers and billboards seem to make the perennial movie promise, ‘now even darker’ and ‘more adult’, there is little to scare the horses here. Director Yates does convey Harry’s sense of unease as the burdens of adulthood make themselves known, though a similar effect might have been achieved by playing pension commercials on a loop.
“Can you afford not to be covered?” Oh yes, we can. A much better bet might be speed-reading the final chapter of Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows come July 20th.