OK, so I've never read a Harry Potter book. I've seen no need to. They're kids' books and I am an adult, and there are too many books aimed at adults that I haven't had time to read yet. I am also not a parent. However, and here's the odd part, I have dutifully been to the cinema to see every single one of the films, usually within a week of release. At the weekend I caught up with part five, The Order Of The Phoenix (or The Pre-Order Of The Phoenix as I couldn't help but think of it during the mad rush to buy the book). I quite like the way they make almost no effort to welcome in new viewers by, say, recapping on the story or anything - they just assume, quite confidently (and that confidence is not misplaced) that everybody has seen the other four, and know that Cedric got killed by Voldemort at the end of the last one, and that Harry started fancying the Chinese girl. The new one just opens, bang, with a Dementor attack in a Surrey underpass and a fat kid, whom I must admit I didn't recognise as the offspring of Richard Griffiths and Fiona Shaw, gets something nasty sucked out of him. Then we're into some kind of wizards' tribunal, and Imelda Staunton takes over Hogwarts and stifles individual creativity on behalf of government denial and spin. (Was this about the Iraq war then, or does JK Rowling not do contemporary allegory? - actually, no, it's set in the present isn't it? Or is it? Clearly Hogwarts and all its trappings are relics from the past, which is what makes the stories so appealing? Or am I missing the point?)

What can I say? For another two and a half hour film, and a very dark one at that, it never gets dull. It's repetitive, and the climax just seems to be about three or four variations on the same duel, but the action and the story keep you hooked. That and the possibility at every turn that you'll see another venerable British character actor doing one scene, or less, or even just appear in a moving photograph, like Timothy Spall. There's no option for the actors to do anything other than mug. This is not a problem, but it sets a tone that makes the younger actors seems stilted and awkward. (And I fear Rupert Grint and Emma Watson may never emerge from drama school.) It's actually Staunton and Gambon and Gleason and Griffiths and Bonham-Carter chewing up scenery that makes all the fantasy work.

Again, we must have been the only people in the entire Odeon not familiar with the text, and thus at least there were some surprises. It was great to see tiny children gripped by it throughout, the spell only broken by toilet visits. I saw the third film in Galway, and a tiny child was literally on the edge of his seat next to me throughout, entranced. That's magic. On points, I'd say that Film Number Three, as I sentimentally call it, was the best in terms of story and direction. Number Four was bogged down with the Tri-Wizard tournament, Harry's involvement in which was never propertly justified, and this one relied too heavily on one character (Dolores Umbridge - God, how I hate Rowling's names) for its entertainment value. But, hey, I'll be there for the Half-Blood Prince in 2008.