Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (2007)
★★ — Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (2007)
There's a particular kind of disappointment that comes not from a film being outright terrible, but from watching it waste your time while being perfectly aware that it's doing so. That's Order of the Phoenix for me. Of all the Harry Potter films, this is the one I find hardest to sit through, and not because it's the worst in any dramatic sense. It's because it's the most forgettable, and forgettable is somehow worse.
The bones of a compelling story are all here. Voldemort has returned, the Ministry is burying its head in the sand, and Harry is left screaming into the void while the adults around him choose comfortable lies over uncomfortable truths. On paper, that's rich territory. In practice, watching those same adults dismiss the same warnings for well over two hours just becomes exhausting. There's only so many times you can watch Harry be disbelieved before the frustration stops feeling dramatic and starts feeling like punishment for the audience.
David Yates takes over the directing duties here, and I'll say this: he commits to a darker register. But darker doesn't automatically mean better, and his approach drains a lot of the warmth and wonder out of Hogwarts. The castle genuinely feels like a prison in this one, all grey corridors and institutional dread, and while that might be thematically appropriate given Dolores Umbridge's reign of bureaucratic terror, it also makes the whole thing oddly joyless to sit with. The rebellion of Dumbledore's Army, which should be the film's beating heart, the bit where you punch the air and feel like these kids are finally taking control, lands with a strange flatness. It should feel empowering. It mostly feels like a montage.
Emma Watson and Rupert Grint are given almost nothing to do, which is a recurring problem as the series goes on but feels especially stark here. And the emotional thread between Harry and Sirius, which the film is clearly banking on to carry the third act, never builds the heat it needs. So when the pivotal moment arrives, the moment that's supposed to gut you, it doesn't land with anything like the weight it should. I wasn't moved. I was just aware that something sad had happened and that we were moving on.
There are flickers of something worthwhile. The Hall of Prophecy in the Ministry of Magic is genuinely eerie, all those glass orbs stretching off into the dark, and the Thestrals are striking creatures, well-realised and properly strange. The film has visual ideas. It just doesn't have enough story ideas to fill the space around them.
Coming off Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, which I thought had genuine momentum and stakes, this feels like a gear change nobody asked for. Where that film was building towards something, this one circles the same frustrations on repeat. It marks time. It's a filler chapter dressed up as a dramatic centrepiece, and the whole thing would feel much more honest if it simply admitted that some of this material is transitional and leaned into brevity rather than bloat. Instead it lumbers along, grim and oddly inert, saving its energy for a final battle that delivers more crashing and shouting than actual tension.
The series does find its footing again. I think Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince is a more interesting film than this, even with its own problems, and by the time we get to Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 there's a genuine sense of earned consequence. But Order of the Phoenix, right here in the middle of the run, is where the series comes closest to losing me entirely. Two stars, and I'm being generous with one of them.
Rating: ★★ | Year: 2007 | Watched: 2025-07-27
Where to watch
Watch in the UK
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Watch in the US
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Related on Movies With Macca
More from David Yates: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 (2011) · Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1 (2010) · Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (2009)
More with Daniel Radcliffe: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 (2011) · Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (2004) · Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1 (2010) · Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (2009)
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More from the 2000s: Kirikou and the Wild Beasts (2005) · Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy (2004) · Daredevil (2003) · Apocalypto (2006)
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