PG-13

Who died and made Harry Potter Hamlet? These films, which began as delightful romps through an excitingly fresh, revisionist fantasyland of wizards, elves and gentle giants, seem more and more to be crumpling under the pressure of their own pathos. This fifth installment of the seven film series continues Harry’s path into the dark territories of adolescence, bringing to the fore his anger and bewilderment as he faces lifes growing complications. Wracked with guilt over the death of a classmate at the end of the previous story, he finds himself cut off from his friends, hunted by the dark minions of his elusive nemesis, and persecuted by the wizard community by which he once hoped to be embraced. It would seem an awful lot for one lone orphan wizard to handle, and as it turns out, he’s not really handling it all that well.

Young Daniel Radcliffe, as the title wizard, has made leaps and bounds as an actor. He’s running rings around the rest of the movie’s juvenile cast. To his credit, even as his character is written into deeper, darker corners, he pulls off the emotional depth with a brooding simmer that outstrips all his previous performances. It makes sense—for the last six years he’s been immersed in a pool of the best acting talent British stage and screen has to offer. The fabulous supporting cast grows with each episode (Michael Gambon, Maggie Smith, Alan Rickman, Ralph Fiennes, Gary Oldman and a dozen others fill the background like prowling lions). As their numbers grow, however, their respective amounts of screen time dwindle, and their roles are woefully rendered down to meager cameos. The intensity they bring to the screen, however, is still deeply felt. One of the most emotionally effective scenes revolves completely around Emma Thompson’s heartbreaking performance as Sybil Trelawney as she is banished from the school. The addition of Imelda Staunton as Hogwarts school’s newest defense-against-the-dark-arts teacher, and eventually High Inquisitor, is one of the great high points of the film. Her Thatcher-esque, tea and crumpet approach to abuse, torture and oppression of students are simply priceless. It’s great that in this world of robes and wands and pointy hats, true evil is signified by fluffy pink sweaters. Helena Bonham Carter also briefly joins the cast. Her nasty, crazy-haired, cackling witch could only be more effective if the last four movies hadn’t spent so much time unbinding the stereotype of witches as being all nasty, crazy-haired and cackling.

Previous “Potter” films have been helmed mainly by established independent directors and have yielded remarkably unique flavors. The first two (directed by Chris Columbus), when the children were still pre-teens, were like sparklers on a hot summer night and full of a kind of magic the audience had never before seen onscreen. The third (by Alphonso Cuaron) was a flat-out horror flick, filmed with a cold, blue menace (presumably to presage the impending return of Harry’s dark enemy) and scared the bejeezus out of little kids around the world. The fourth, by Mike Newell (Four Weddings and a Funeral), brought back some color and flare, but was ultimately overcome by its own noisy bombast.

And now David Yates takes a shot at the Potter legacy. Veteran of only a handful of BBC television productions and a couple of dramatic features, a more unlikely candidate to take the reigns of a worldwide blockbuster franchise would be difficult to imagine, but his hand is surprisingly assured. Taking Rowling’s longest book, he and screenwriter Steve Kloves (also new to the wizarding world) have spared no red ink in stripping the story right down to produce the shortest film so far in the series. It seems a valiant attempt to distill Harry’s journey down to it’s core, but it’s unfortunate that their perception of his journey is sopping with self-doubt, hopelessness and disassociation. Though sporting a few rousing power clashes and a couple of light moments between the friends, their delivery introduces very little to the mythos and barely moves Harry an inch out of his established funk. Though arguably learning (for the fifth time) about the power of friendship and the necessity of accepting life in bigger shoes, by the end, Harry is still as hunted, haunted and doomed as he started. And as we wait breathlessly for the revelation of his fate in the final book—to be released later this week—we are left with only the somber, cliffhanging question: is Harry to be or not to be?