Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

Rating: It's worth full price on a big screen
Important to know: on the scary side for little kids, all the parts you wish were there will probably be on the DVD
For the Gamer Chicks: A solid adaptation with more complicated female characters than you can shake a stick at.

My mother bought tickets to the midnight release of this movie, and thus I saw it with my mum, surrounded by teenagers in various costumes and Potter t-shirts, many proclaiming their belief that Snape is Loyal, or that he's a truly rotten git. I haven't been part of so friendly and active a crowd since Snakes on a Plane.

The plot of a Potter story can never fit into a nutshell, but here goes: Harry's fifth year at Hogwarts begins with an act of magic that nearly gets him expelled. He learns that the wizarding community doesn't believe Voldemort is back, and a new professor is going to make his life (and everyone else's at Hogwarts) hell because of it. Several old and new adult characters (and every single Weasely) have reformed the Order of the Phoenix to battle Lord V and his Deatheaters while at school a handful of believers look to Harry to teach them how to defend themselves. But Harry is not sure of himself anymore, his emotions are overwhelming him since the events of the last film, and his frightening dreams are back...

Book Five is by far my favorite. I love it for two reasons: the fantastic Weasley twins, and Harry Potter finally becoming a real boy. For four movies, dear Harry has been a lovely, unselfish, thoughtful, compassionate young man whose every misstep from proper behavior has been done in sweet playfulness or because lives were at stake. It took the return of Lord Voldemort and the death of poor Cedric, but this film finally turns Harry into a real live teenage boy. God they can be jerks.

Daniel Radcliff is amazing in this movie, frightening both his friends and the audience with his sudden bursts of temper and tugging on heartstrings with his confusion and growing fear that he has somehow become tainted with evil. The rest of the cast of youngsters keeps in step with Radcliff, alternating from serious to light-hearted smoothly and believably. Keep an eye on Bonnie Wright's lovely Ginny Weasely, subtly laying the groundwork for the next film with her facial expressions. Evanna Lynch makes new character Luna Lovegood good company to the children we've already grown to love. Tom Felton's Draco gets little to do, which is a disappointment, but again, if you've read the books, you know patience will see you through.

The adults are marvelous as well, Sirius is back, and Gary Oldman lets readers know he's read the books, infusing Black with all the fallibility readers remember. Vamping it up and loving it is Helena Bonham Carter as the murderous Bellatrix LeStrange, and love-to-hate them Snape and Lucius Malfoy display hidden depths of caution and concern. Ralph Fiennes does what a noseless menace can with his short turn as Voldemort.

Stealing the show however, is Imelda Staunton as the vicious Dolores Umbridge. Dolores is the new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher at Hogwarts, and she is the nemesis of not just Harry, but every student at Hogwarts. She is more frightening than Voldemort himself, her stubborn ignorance and prediliction for pink would be comical if not for her torturous punishments and sadistic persecution of Harry. Staunton has a smile that Hannibal Lector would recognize and return.

The only one (or rather, two) who could combat such a horrible witch? Fred and George Weasely of course! James and Oliver Phelps take the scenes they grace and run away with them, it's amazing how much these two have grown (physically and in talent) over the course of these films, and even when they are being silly, they show the audience how brave and noble the trickster twins truly are.

Much of this movie is politics. The children are suffering because the Ministry of Magic refuses to believe Voldemort is back and wants to restrict Dumbledore (who knows he is). The students take sides for and against Harry and themselves and much of the usual high school dramatics are left behind in the face of possible war and death. The Order of the Phoenix doesn't get much screentime, indeed, some of them don't even get names! It's a darker, more dangerous Harry Potter, with no magical phoenixes to save characters from otherwise certain death. From here on in, death can come at any moment. The children know it, and they've made themselves into an army.

Despite the involved plot, the movie kept me engaged and excited until the very end. The climactic scene fell a bit flat, and not only because it wasn't the same as the books. If anything, it felt like the film was building to a grand finale and didn't quite deliver. It seemed to me like there could have been more - or at least a more clear - scene depicting what was happening between Harry and Voldemort.

While I found the ending wanting, I still feel this to be one of the strongest of the five Potter movies. Well-acted and well-adapted, no matter what I wished had been left in the movie (there is, for example, no time for quidditch), it tells a complete chapter of a larger story. Potter movies always leave you wanting more, but in this film's case, with Book Seven just around the corner, you're also left petrified for your favorite characters, you don't want to lose them twice.