Review: Harry Potter & the Chamber of Secrets

I'm not embarassed to admit that I'm 26 years old and a fan of Harry Potter. This weekend saw the release of the 2nd film based on Rowling's books about the wizard boy and his education at Hogwarts. The first film was a smash blockbuster, will this one live up to the huge expectations? My review follows. There will probably be spoilers, but if you haven't read the book, why do you care about the movie? Let me start by saying I think that Chamber of Secrets is probably the weakest of the 4 released Harry Potter books. Many cool things are introduced here- especially the development of the Weasely family. And their magical home is well introduced even if it does seem a bit claustrophobic inside. And Lockhart is an excellent character. But besides revelations about Harry's connection to Voldemort, I just think the other books are stronger.

Most of the cast is back again for the sophomore film. If you liked them before, you'll like them again, even if the boys voices have started changing and everyone is a little taller than they were last november.

The most substantial new character this time around is Gilderoy Lockhart played over the top and on the money by Kenneth Branagh. Alan Rickman's Severus Snape is practically a bit part here, but Richard Harris's Dumbledore gets a lot of scenes.

The general plot is as follows: Harry Returns to Hogwarts for his second year of wizarding school. He keeps getting signals and warnings that there will be trouble, but he ignores them and goes right on in anyway (Wouldn't you if you had his home life?). Anyway, at school students keep turning up petrified and the legend of the Chamber of Secrets revealed. Beyond that there's a little quidditch, rivalry with the other houses, and a mystery needing solving.

Generic, yes. But it's solidly produced and entertaining. Course I'm right in line for next year because I think the next 2 books are superior to the first 2.

As for the FX, I think they're a bit better than last time around. Especially during the Quidditch matches. The first films game sequences looked bad. Everything looked CG. This time around things are much more convincing. They also tackled Dobby the house elf and did him as a full CG character. The rendering on Dobby is just beautiful. Any still shot from his scenes would convince you that they just filmed a house elf right on set. And the fabric moves really well. Unfortunately the motion is all off. His weight feels wrong. His interaction with the set seems like he's a muppet. Hopefully they can nail him down before Goblet of Fire when there are many house elf scenes.

Anyway, I think this film is weaker than the first one, but I think that mostly this is because the book really doesn't add as much to the larger story. It's a solid movie and it stands well on its own feet, but knowing the bigger things yet to come gets me drooling for the next one. I'm hoping that handing the series off to someone besides Chris Columbus will give it a shot in the arm.

Comments

ILM

[gummijoh]

ILM did the FX on this one. They broke the deal with the FX firm that did the first Harry Potter Movie.

Job well done ILM.

Re:ILM

[Relyx]

In fact, quite a number of visual effects companies were involved in both Potter films. For the second film, work was farmed out not just to ILM, but also a number of companies belonging to London's Soho VFX scene.

While ILM worked on Dobby and the Quiditch match, facilities such as The Moving Picture Company produced the opening sequence, the Flying Ford Anglia, the Whomping Willow and the snake in the duelling scene. Mill Film (who won an oscar for Gladiator) did the spiders. I imagine other Soho companies such as Framestore CFC made significant contributions too, but alas my memory escapes me - corrections and additions welcome!

Over the past few years, Soho has been winning an increasing amount of film work. Double Negative, for example, did the effects for Pitch Black, Enemy at the Gates and Below. They currently have something like four jobs on as we speak. CFC (Computer Film Company, as it was then known) have done, among many other things, the effects for Blade2. Other projects farmed out among the Soho companies include Tomb Raider and the latest Bond film, Die Another Day.

Special effects cost a lot of money and, alas, are not as simple as pushing a few buttons and making the computer do the work. It involves vast numbers of talented people working together. To give you an idea, big facilities such as ILM employ many thousands of people, who all have their own speciality. Soho combined has just a fraction of that. This explains why the work for Potter and other films is farmed out to many companies and not just one. The upside, for the film studios, is that it is much more cost effective. After all, an effects company with a staff of 300 is a lot more nimble than a company of 10000. In an industry where the goalposts are always changing (new software, new techniques, new practices etc) this can be an important consideration.

- Relyx

Looking Ahead to Film Three

[ancarett]

Columbus has already bowed out. Alfonso Cuaron has signed on to direct the third adaptation: Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. Filming will begin sometime in the spring so you won't see this on the screen until sometime in 2004 (Relief or disappointment? You decide.)

It's been rumoured that Christopher Lee will step into the late Richard Harris's shoes as Dumbledore in the third film, although he has emphatically denied this. I'd prefer Ian McKellan myself.

Re:Embarassment

[CleverNickName]

I felt vicariously embarassed when, leaving a different movie last night, my wife and I walked past a group of shabby comic-book-guy-like twentysomethings, sitting at the head of a very, very long Harry Potter line, playing Magic on the floor.

Oh man, my best friend, my brother, and I sat in line for Episode 1 for 18 hours.

We passed the time by playing Magic, and reading Dragon magazine.

My wife still talks about it, calling us "Neerrdd!" in her best Homer Simpson voice.

On topic: I didn't like this film nearly as much as the first one. I haven't read the books, and this felt more like a mystery caper, rather than the adventure of the first one. I'm pretty sure it's blasphemous to say this, but I thought the Quidditch match was unnecessarily long, and didn't move the story forward enough to justify its length.

As long as I'm going total Comic-book guy on this, does it bother anyone else that Harry Potter is supposed to be this great and powerful wizard, but his friends at Hogwarts always seem to be saving his ass?

Okay, I'm off to build a black and blue deck in preparation for the Two Towers opening. I know I have a Lord of the Pit around here somewhere...

Re:Scary books...

[dw5000]

It would help if I cut and pasted from the right website.

Fairy tales do not tell children the dragons exist. Children already know that dragons exist. Fairy tales tell children the dragons can be killed. -- G.K. Chesterson