Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (2002)

My Rating: 9/10

Directed by: Chris Columbus 
Screenplay by: Steve Kloves
Genre: Fantasy, Family, Action & Adventure
Runtime: 151 Minutes

A year has passed and Harry returns to school in a slightly more dark tones environment of trees fighting back, giant spiders, flying cars and several other magical things. Harry Potter 2 is a very worthy sequel, and is one of my favourites from the Potter series. I like it slightly more than the original, and that is unlikely with most film series. Once more we have wonderful characters and weird happenings and the film begins to unravel more of the mysteries that lay within the walls of Hogwarts. To believe this is only the beginning of the series and after this we’ll be seeing a lot more of Potter and the gang in more action, fantasy and excitement. Oh and let’s not forget about drama, lots of good filled drama.

Plot:

It is Harry’s second year at Hogwarts, but someone clearly doesn’t want him back. After being blocked out from platform 9 and 3 quarters and being attacked by a huge ass tree (the whomping willow) Harry makes it to Hogwarts. It isn’t long until Harry, Hermione and Ron discover Mrs Norris, the caretaker’s cat, petrified. For those that don’t know the petrified state is not death, but freezes a person’s body. They notice on the wall that in blood someone has written the chamber is open. So the gang try to uncover more about the chamber of secrets and uncover the mysterious happenings.

New to the film

Well there are already so many characters in the story to begin with, but a few more have made their way into the second film. In fact, I wouldn’t even say a few. We finally meet Draco Malfoy’s father, Lucius, who is just as bad as Draco, if not worse. Then we have the house elf Dobby, the servant of Lucius. Then we have Gilderoy Lockheart the new defence against the dark arts teacher. He is egotistical, narcissistic, but mostly he is just dumb as he makes up false stories and in terms of magic, he can barely do any. There are so many new characters introduced here I shant talk about all of them. This is not an archive, it’s a review.

The Dursley’s

I forgot to mention the Dursley’s in my previous Potter review, so here I go. The Dursley’s are the ultimate bad family, and together they are cynical, mean but remain very egotistical. Let’s not forget the selfish little brat known as Dudley. I think they are just brilliant because of how mean they are, you really just want to punch Dudley in the face at times and push Vernon (Mr Dursley) over.

The Amazing music

Another thing I forgot to mention was the wonderful music. The theme is absolutely brilliant and is one of my favourites of all time. Just hearing that music as we see the Warner Bros. logo come out form the clouds, then the Harry Potter title in it’s original font glory is a great moment.

Overall:

So one step up from Harry Potter 1 we have a worthy sequel and a darn good show! Full of new characters and more uprising of talk of Voldemort the story slowly unravels. The film has excellent visual effects for it’s time, and with the climactic final scene, you will likely agree. Once more young Radcliffe, Grint and Watson, the three of our main characters whose friendship we see from age 11 to 18, and that is something few film series do. We get to see them go through their childhood and teen years and it’s a very different kind of experience with the Potter franchise. Overall Chamber Of Secrets is a terrific addition to the Potter franchise and regardless if you’re a huge Potter fan (like me) the film boasts visuals, emotion, characters and all that other stuff you expect form a film.
 

Ratings:

Screenplay/Story: 9.1/10

Characters: 9.1/10

Emotion: 8.8/10

Direction & Cinematography: 9/10

Visual & Editing: 9.2/10

Music: 8.8/10

Overall: 9/10