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I'm not an expert on Harry Potter. Actually, I've never read any of the books, and prior to Order Of The Phoenix, I'd never seen any of the movies. Everything I know about the series, I learned from my girlfriend. So this review isn't going to discuss the differences between the film and the book (though she's since told me about those differences in great detail). I'm more interested in exploring how it works purely as a movie, and whether it can be understood on its own terms. Unfortunately, I found it unsatisfying in both those respects.

The plot: Harry Potter (Daniel Radcliffe) is threatened with expulsion from Hogwarts just prior to the start of his fifth year, but the trumped-up charges are dismissed and he returns to school to find that hardly anyone believes his claim that the evil Lord Voldemort (Ralph Fiennes) has returned. Matters are made worse by the arrival of Dolores Umbridge (Imelda Staunton), the loathsome new Defense Against The Dark Arts teacher. She's actually working for the Ministry of Magic, and teaches the students a watered-down, theoretical course on the grounds that there's no danger for them to defend themselves against. Harry's friends Ron (Rupert Grint) and Hermione (Emma Watson) convince him to teach the students real defensive tactics in secret; meanwhile, Harry has terrifying dreams that suggest Voldemort may be able to invade his mind.

I'd estimate that about two-thirds of the film is exposition, building towards the climactic battle with Voldemort and his Death Eaters that occupies most of the last half-hour. And this is the most frustrating aspect of the movie for non-fans: it's damn difficult to tell what's happening, and in an obvious effort to compress an 870-page novel into a two hour and fifteen minute (more or less) film, everything feels rushed. Characters talk too quickly, scenes begin and end abruptly, and the entire exercise feels choppy and poorly edited.

Then there's the matter of what this compression does to the cast of sterling British actors who make up the Hogwarts faculty and Voldemort's forces. Maggie Smith and Emma Thompson spend so little time on screen their parts come across as afterthoughts, and while much of the hype leading up to the film's release focused on Helena Bonham Carter's appearance as Bellatrix Lestrange, her role also feels unnecessarily condensed. The focus is so tightly on Harry's internal struggles and Umbridge's takeover of the school that it leaves little room for anyone else; and while it makes some sense to narrow the focus in order to turn such an enormous book into a film, the result still feels like a waste of a magnificent cast.

So, what of the actors who do get a decent amount of screen time? Alan Rickman fares best-- his dour deadpan makes Snape the most entertaining character in the film-- and Ralph Fiennes is wonderfully sinister in his brief turn as Voldemort. Michael Gambon and Gary Oldman also turn in solid performances, though once again I can't judge their fidelity to the original versions of their characters. The problem is with the younger actors at the movie's core. Grint and Watson both seem to be going through the motions, possibly because their characters just don't feel all that important here; and Radcliffe is unconvincing in his attempts to convey Harry's emotional turmoil-- his performance is extremely flat, and it never really feels as though he's inhabiting the character fully. It feels too artificial, too obviously a performance, and that's not good when it comes to the most important character in the story.

Finally, there are the special effects. This film reportedly had a budget of more than $200 million, but it doesn't really show apart from that final half-hour, with Death Eaters dematerializing and rematerializing and Dumbledore and Voldemort engaging in a spectacular battle that involves a lot of fire and a lot of water. The visuals elsewhere are competent but hardly inspired, and some of the CG effects look cheap, as though budgetary restrictions limited the filmmakers' visual imaginations. It wasn't anywhere near as impressive as I'd expected, and combined with the narrative confusion and the uneven acting, it results in the film being a serious disappointment.

Rating- 5/10