Mercifully, It's been improved upon in almost every imaginable way. What was
merely a collection of episodes is now a cohesive narrative. What was endless
introduction and exposition is now a non-stop action extravaganza. What were
some of the dodgiest big budget special effects seen in a long time now give
Lucas and Jackson something to think about. And, most importantly, what was
the movie magic equivalent of an evening with Paul Daniels is now filled to
the brim with imagination and style.
It's now second year for boy wizard Harry Potter and his friends at Hogwarts
School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. But before Harry can get there, he has to
escape the clutches of his loathsome adoptive family, the Dursleys, as well as
the attentions of Dobby, a mysterious elf, who warns him not to return to
Hogwarts. But return he does (in a flying car, obviously) to find that students
are being petrified alive by an unknown force and strange messages are being
daubed in blood on the school walls. A terrible creature has been stirred in
the Chamber of Secrets and the finger of suspicion is soon being pointed at
Harry himself. It's up to him and his companions to solve the puzzle and stop
the evil force before it's too late.
The Chamber of Secrets is a truly cracking mystery adventure, with just about
everything you could want from a blockbuster movie - thrills, scares (some quite
intense, so be careful with the tots) laughs and excitement. As mentioned above,
the effects are either superb (the flying car is completely convincing) or jaw
dropping - where the Quidditch match first time round looked faintly ridiculous,
it's now a piece of lightning fast brutality to rival just about any action
sequence of recent times.
On the down side, there seems to be very little room left for most of the supporting
cast that gave the first film what few delights it had. Coltrane as Hagrid is
criminally underused. Ditto Rickman and Smith. Harris gets slightly more to do
and proves he will be sadly missed and hard to replace. Of the new faces this
outing, Isaacs makes a strong impression and his future confrontations with
Harry will be something to look forward to. Branagh is absolutely hilarious
but even he seems to disappear for hours at a time, such is the more or less
constant screen time given to Harry (it is his film after all). This would be
a problem if Radcliffe were as unsure as he was first time round, where he did
little except gawp like a slack jawed yokel. Thankfully, he's grown into the
role wonderfully and now actually convinces us that Harry is special. Grint,
as his comic relief sidekick Ron, is given less funny lines, but still makes
the most of them, along with a brilliant array of funny faces and yelps that
would do Lou Costello proud, while Watson's Hermione is as simultaneously
irritating and sweet as before.
A year ago, the battle between Harry and the Hobbits saw young Potter take a
right good thrashing, if not at the box office, then certainly in terms of
quality. If the Two Towers trailer is anything to go by, the result might be
quite clear cut again, but at least the speccy wizard should be able to put up
a decent fight this time.
As of April 2009, Blu-rays and DVDs reviewed by the editor are watched on a Panasonic TH-37PX80B
37" Plasma TV with a Sony BDP-1500 Blu-ray player and played through a Yamaha DSP-AX820 amplifier.
PC games reviewed by the editor are on:
Since Jan 2011: Intel Quad Core Dell XPS 8100, i7 CPU 860 @ 2.80Ghz, 8Gb RAM, nVidia GeForce GTS 240, Windows 7
Since Nov 2005: Intel Pentium D 830 3.0Ghz, 1Gb RAM, 128Mb nVidia GeForce 6700XL, Windows XP
Since Aug 2003: Intel Pentium 4 2.66Ghz, 512Mb RAM, 128Mb GeForce4 MX440 graphics, Windows XP
Since May 2003: Intel Pentium 4 2.6Ghz, 512Mb RAM, 128Mb ATI Radeon 9600TX graphics, Windows XP
Since Jun 2002: Intel Pentium III 600Mhz, 384Mb RAM, Windows 98 SE, 64Mb ATI Radeon 8500LE
Since May 2000: Intel Pentium III 600Mhz, 384Mb RAM, Windows 98 SE, Voodoo 3 3000 AGP
