Film Feature: Harry Potter and the Legacy of a Franchise

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5.) Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (2007)

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
Photo credit: Warner Bros.

“I’m not weak!” Harry yells at the ever-contemptible Snape, who coldly replies, “Then prove it.” And prove it he did. After carrying four epic pictures on his slender shoulders, Radcliffe finally became an actor of considerable presence, in no small part because of the guidance he received from co-star Gary Oldman (quietly moving as Harry’s godfather Sirius Black) and director David Yates (“The Girl in the Café”).

As the increasingly isolated Harry watches many of his closest allies vanish, Radcliffe hits dramatic notes he was never able to reach at a younger age, and his work has only gotten better ever since. “Phoenix” is perhaps Rowling’s most pointedly political book, with its corrupt Ministry of Magic sending authoritarian representatives to control Hogwarts, brainwashing students into believing that they aren’t in any immediate danger.

The initial appearance of Voldemort in “Goblet” casts a dark pall over the remaining installments, though it also allows the filmmakers to probe deeper into the material. “Hem hem”-ing Ministry meddler Dolores Umbridge (brilliantly played by Imelda Staunton) is no pushover villain. She is a terrifyingly authentic bureaucrat whose benign smile conceals a brutish determination to control and suppress everything in her path. This forces the students to teach themselves the vital lessons they can’t learn in school, resulting in a climactic battle as exciting as any big-budget effects sequence in recent memory. Yet it is Yates’s gift for intimate character studies that remains his greatest asset. The pacing is a bit off, mainly because Michael Goldenberg’s screenplay is uneasily condensed. Kloves is sorely missed, but I assume the guy figured he deserved a one-picture break.

Pensieve Moment: It took me forever to get through “Phoenix,” and not because it was the largest of the novels. It’s because Umbridge enraged me to such a passionate degree that I repeatedly threw the book across my bedroom, which was no small feat.

4.) Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (2002)

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
Photo credit: Warner Bros.

Released a mere year after “Sorcerer’s Stone,” this rollicking installment is grand entertainment from beginning to end and the best work of Chris Columbus’s career. Perhaps because the plot is strikingly similar to its predecessor, it enabled the filmmakers to improve their efforts in all departments: the suspense is heightened, the gags are funnier, the storytelling is more confident and the horror is much, much spookier. The last half unfolds into a monster movie with real fangs, though Columbus still makes it palatable for little (albeit brave) kids.

It also proved to be the final film in the magnificent career of Richard Harris, who died soon after production wrapped. It’s obvious that Harris was ailing on the set, but his wispy voice and dignified elegance proved to be appropriate for the role of Hogwarts Headmaster Dumbledore in the early pictures, when the character was more mysterious and larger-than-life to the owl-eyed Potter. His passing brought added poignance to the scene in which he teaches Harry about the death and rebirth of his beloved phoenix.

Shirley Henderson scores big laughs as the helium-voiced Moaning Myrtle, while Kenneth Branagh displays aloofness worthy of Ted Baxter as the latest blowhard elected to the position of Dark Arts teacher (seriously, that position is as doomed as a “Spinal Tap” drummer). The whimsical humor lacking in later installments is never more delightful than it is here. There’s a screaming telegram from Mrs. Weasley (Julie Walters) that brings down the house, as does a grotesque mandrake lesson taught by Professor Sprout (Miriam Margoyles).

Harry’s discovery that he can speak “Parseltongue” causes him to reflect on the numerous unsettling similarities he has to Voldemort, yet it also leads to one of the funniest bits in the series. When Hermione tells Harry that hearing voices isn’t a good sign—even for wizards, a man in a framed picture turns to Harry and says, “She’s right you know.” It’s a throwaway detail, but the kind that makes Rowling’s work such an addictive pleasure.

Pensieve Moment: I was so psyched for “Chamber” that I attended a midnight screening with a lightning bolt scribbled on my forehead. I couldn’t believe the number of autographs I ended up signing.

3.) Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (2009)

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
Photo credit: Warner Bros.

Just as Columbus’s sophomore “Potter” effort was his triumph, so is “Half-Blood Prince” for Yates. With Kloves back on board, this film greatly enriched a plot that was essentially one extended prelude to the final book. Instead of smothering the dialogue in exposition, Yates focuses instead on key character nuances, allowing the story to breathe in spots where it would undoubtedly be breathless in the hands of a less perceptive filmmaker. There isn’t a moment in this 153-minute epic that feels sloppily constructed or badly paced.

In his first post-“Equus” performance as The Boy Who Lived, Radcliffe is looser and livelier than ever, even as the tale builds to a notorious sequence of operatic tragedy. Yates’s command of tone is impeccable throughout, balancing hypnotically frightening flashbacks (via a Pensieve) of a young Voldemort (played with startling intensity by Frank Dillane and Hero Fiennes-Tiffin, nephew of Ralph) with sequences of great humor and warmth. Ron’s love potion intoxication and Harry’s cocky transformation under the influence of Liquid Luck give the film some welcome levity, as does the beguiling Evanna Lynch, who brings such vibrant life to loopy student Luna Lovegood that it makes one wish Rowling had written her as Harry’s love interest.

Unfortunately, that role is taken by Ron’s little sister, Ginny, played by the jarringly wooden Bonnie Wright (her kissing scene with Harry is by far the weakest thing in the picture). Yet that hardly matters in light of the film’s multiple strengths, such as the marvelous turn by Jim Broadbent as the well-meaning Professor Slughorn, or the newfound vulnerability delivered by Tom Felton, whose bratty character of Malfoy often felt distressingly one-note. However, I will say it’s probably a good thing that this is the last “Potter” film to feature a Quidditch game, since the broomsticks have begun to look painful, not to mention a tad…um, phallic.

Pensieve Moment: The climactic sequence set in an ominous underground basin was exactly as I had pictured it in my mind. It was the moment when I first fell in love with Yates’s measured, foreboding approach to the material. He had built such a viscerally tense atmosphere that by the time a hand popped out of the water in classic “Carrie” fashion, the entire audience jumped out of their seats.

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