Poor Harry Potter. Despite being at the center of a multi-billion dollar literary and cinematic phenomenon, he’s an outcast at school, the government has launched a propaganda campaign against him, and Lord Voldemort just won’t leave him alone.

At the end of his fourth school year, Harry (Daniel Radcliffe) witnessed the Dark Lord’s (Ralph Fiennes) return to physical form and his friend Cedric Diggory’s murder. Unfortunately, the Ministry of Magic has cast a dubious eye on Harry’s account, to put it mildly. After a dementor attack curtails his summer holiday, Harry returns to Hogwarts School for Witchcraft and Wizardry to find that the Ministry has planted the simpering, malicious Dolores Umbridge (Imelda Staunton) on the faculty.

As Umbridge’s fuzzy pink tyranny grows, Harry becomes the leader of an underground Dark Arts defense group. Meanwhile, he cannot shake his nightmares or his sense that Voldemort is launching his most dangerous plot yet, despite the best efforts of Albus Dumbledore’s (Michael Gambon) secret society, the Order of the Phoenix.

Director David Yates has created a very different Harry Potter movie than any so far. A relative unknown before being tapped for the Potter helm, Yates pared down the set design and music for a rough, gritty effect. Even the sweeping flyovers have been replaced by tighter, shaky camerawork. Hogwarts feels more like a real place — moving staircases and talking pictures notwithstanding — than ever before.

The grimy backdrop means Harry’s emotions take center stage. Not only is Harry now 15 years old — with everything that implies — he also looks to be in serious need of a trauma therapist. A shocking event near the end of the film makes it clear that Harry’s life is not about to improve any time soon. “Phoenix” lives up to its billing as the darkest and most adult Potter film yet, probing the emotional complexities of growing up while in a life-and-death struggle with an evil dark wizard with sensitivity and sophistication.

Posing naked astride a horse in front of thousands of Londoners seems to have done wonders for Radcliffe’s acting. He carries the movie and does so wonderfully. One of the best moments in the movie is a flashback to “Sorcerer’s Stone” that powerfully illustrates how far both character and actor have come. Radcliffe has literally grown into his role.

An Oscar nominee for 2004’s “Vera Drake,” Staunton turns in a terrific performance as Umbridge. The pink sweaters, sweet smile and prim manner conceal a Machiavellian sadist. Umbridge’s government connections make “Phoenix” by far the most political of the series, although no parallels can be drawn to contemporary leaders.

Newcomer Evanna Lynch plays the other major addition to the cast, spacey Luna Lovegood. Lynch was chosen out of a United Kingdom-wide open casting call that attracted 15,000 hopefuls, and her delightfully loopy performance shows why.

The rest of the marvelous British cast is sadly underused. Michael Gambon (Albus Dumbledore), Alan Rickman (Severus Snape) and Emma Thompson (Sybil Trelawney) vanish into the stonework.

And the plot seems to be hiding with them. For such a long movie (clocking in at 2 hours 18 minutes, “Phoenix” is actually the shortest in the series) made from an even longer book, surprisingly little happens. The one or two people in the world who have not read the book can expect to be confused, bored or both.

But the movie does capture tone and atmosphere better than the book. J. K. Rowling’s novel is heavy on internal action and has the least-defined main plot of the series, and even in the best of circumstances, cutting an 896-page tome down to a reasonable movie length is a tough nut to crack. Many of the lighter touches that make Rowling’s writing such a joy are casualties of the merciless trimming.

Still, the film is choppy and episodic, with plot elements perfunctorily ticked off one after another with minimal continuity. Even the climactic battle in the Ministry of Magic seems rushed, although the final face-off with Voldemort is undeniably cool.

Despite the popular emphasis on special effects wizardry, what makes the Potter films resonate is Harry’s coming-of-age story. That, at least, this film gets right. And even if “Phoenix” is basically more than two hours of setup, well, the next one should be really good.

Rating: 2.5 stars out of 4

“Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix” is rated PG-13. It opens at the Regal Green Hills and the Regal Hollywood on July 11.