by Sun Meilan

Created on: October 24, 2008

After narrowly missing being expelled for using magic out of the school grounds, Harry returns to Hogwarts School to find that very few of his schoolmates and teachers believe that Voldemort has returned. Even worse, the Ministry of Magic doesn't believe him, and appoints a new Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher, Dolores Umbridge, who refuses to teach her students anything that could help them in case of an attack by Voldemort. Harry, Hermione and Ron are forced to get a group of students together, known as the Order of the Pheonix, to learn the skills that they need. But Umbridge is slowly gaining in power as Voldemort seems to be taking control of Harry's mind. Will the Order's efforts be enough? Or will Voldemort finally be victorious?

This is an adaptation of the fifth book in the Harry Potter series and, after the success of the first four films, it was always going to be hard pressed to meet people's expectations. In the end, I hardly noticed that it had been released, because I was caught up in all the hype of the final book release. And when I finally got round to watching it, I found it really hard to follow because I had forgotten most of what happened in the book and there isn't enough time in the film to go into deep explanations of what is happening. Now, having watched it three times, I finally feel ready to be able to write a review on it.

There is not much to say about Daniel Radcliffe (Harry), Emma Watson (Hermione) and Rupert Grint (Ron) that hasn't already been said before. All are good, they just don't do anything that particularly stands out. Harry has his first kiss with Cho Chang, which is probably the most exciting his role gets - all the fighting that he has to do towards the end of the film has been done before and whereas he is completely convincing in the role, I just couldn't get that excited about it. Rupert Grint doesn't have enough screen time for me - he is a great comic and I love his developing relationship with Hermione. Hermione seems generally quite subdued here, and again seems to have been sidelined for the sake of the story.

Imelda Staunton plays Dolores Umbridge and is great at being utterly annoying, just as Dolores is supposed to be. She is also slightly creepy, and owns the role as if she weren't acting. Then there is Luna Lovegood, played by Evanna Lynch. Everyone seems to mention how good she is in the role and I have to say I agree - she has a very slight, silvery voice that fits my image of her from the book

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