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.