The first entry of one of the Harry Potter movies onto my list and it’s the Order, which for me was the weakest of the stories. This statement has to be taken in context as I loved the books despite getting to them very late in my years and the whole story. I will probably share my story of ‘getting into Harry Potter’ at some stage but may not do so now. This movie stars *take a deep breath the usual Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint & Emma Watson along with Helena Bonham Carter, Robbie Coltrane, Warwick Davis, Ralph Fiennes, Michael Gambon, Brendan Gleeson, Richard Griffiths, Jason Isaacs, Gary Oldman, Alan Rickman, Fiona Shaw, Maggie Smith, Imelda Staunton, David Thewlis, Emma Thompson & Julie Walters. And Breathe. The HP movies snowballed the same as the books and would always be a huge success at the box office recouping $942m from the original cost of production of $200m. The critics are almost in agreement as this is a new entry onto Tri-Critic Sync Challenge and landing in the current second position with a three point difference with IMDb giving this a 7.5/10 and Rotten Tomatoes giving the same as me with a 78% score. With this being the fifth instalment of the franchise if you haven’t seen or read them then skip the plot and go read/watch in order.
If you are a HP fan then read on, which I’ve just realised what I’ve done there as you can only read this if you already know it so why would you read it? I don’t know it does just mean I can breeze over this plot this time. With Voldemort still lurking in the shadows of the world people are still doubting Harry Potter and the powers of the ministry of magic are slowly being corrupted. Prof Dolores Umbridge is sent to Hogwarts to support Dumbledore leadership there. Well that’s the official line where more appropriate would be the decaying government is meddling with the powers of Hogwarts School. Umbridge is given the role of Prof of the Dark Arts and is strictly following the government rules of no actual magic just theory from books. So, the gang decide to have Harry teach the actual magic in a secret location, calling this group Dumbledore’s Army. The group is discovered and seeing the name the government are led to believe that Dumbledore is leading an uprising against them and replace him with Umbridge as the new head. That should set you up for the rest.
Now I cannot put my finger on why I didn’t like this story as much as the others. I think it was to do with the sheer oppression of Umbridge throughout the story which was a love to hate situation but I felt the characters were so tied down there wasn’t the battle against the forces of evil like the snake or the two headed villain of the first movie. This was someone openly preventing anything from happening and it does fit neatly in with the rest of the stories. It was all the skulking around and having to hide which was.. Aha I have it the word that may just put the finger on the spot. I was frustrated with this story and that was the plan from the start you are supposed to feel the frustration and annoyance of the main characters. That is the story and that is how you feel for the characters and that for me was holding them down, I fully appreciate there needs to be an arch to the story and this has to be here it just doesn’t need to be loved as much as the other stories within this group. Do I like the story and the movie, of course 100% would I recommend this movie yes. More so I would tell you to watch them in order to follow the whole epic-ness of the story but this is (for me) the weakest within a great set of stories and movies. I hope that makes sense.
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