Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

Starring: Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson, Rupert Grint, Imelda Staunton

Director: David Yates

Category: IIA

Rowdy youths in a deserted suburban playground; concrete underpasses echoing with menace; a nocturnal view of political and financial centres of power ... it's the sort of imagery audiences have come to expect from David Yates' gritty, socially conscious dramas (such as his award-winning, two-part television series Sex Traffic).

But it's not the sort of thing fans of Harry Potter might expect in the opening reel. After all, J.K. Rowling's books and the films conjured from them have focused on magical realms rather than the hard realities faced by ordinary mortals. But Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix is different. In Yates' hands, the film - the first in which the wand-wielding protagonists are firmly in the grip of adolescent angst - zeroes in on the dark excesses of authoritarianism and the rebellion it spawns.

Now that death has finally touched the world of teenage wizard Potter (Daniel Radcliffe, above) - a classmate was murdered in front of him by his nemesis, Lord Voldemort (Ralph Fiennes), at the climax of the last movie - the series has begun to explore flawed humanity and mortality. Although the anticipation of a showdown with Voldemort still drives the film, The Order of the Phoenix entertains through its engagement with oppression in the form of the all-powerful Ministry of Magic and its efforts to marginalise the academy for sorcery headed by the upstanding Dumbledore (Michael Gambon).