Rating- * * * * (4/5)
I had less than flattering things to say about the first Harry Potter film, The Sorcerer’s Stone, but this film impressed me much more for several reasons. First of all, I should mention that I had read the book before seeing the first film, which I am sure had an adverse affect on my opinion of the film because, let’s face it, nine times out of ten the book is going to be better than the movie. I went into this second film having acknowledged that fact and refusing to read the book on which the new movie is based. Second, I believe that the team behind the Potter series finally realized that they were in the movie business and started taking the project seriously. In the first film, I felt a lot of self-righteousness and pompousness from the filmmakers in the film itself; it seemed as if the filmmakers were so blown away by the fact that they were making a movie out of this book, that they forgot that they were actually making a film, not a reenactment of a book. The actors are also a lot more mature and believable in their performances in this film than in the first, especially Daniel Radcliff who downplayed Harry’s sense of wonder and awe in the first film but gets away with it in this one because by now, Harry has seen just about everything and has no awe or wonder about anything. In The Chamber of Secrets, the filmmakers are clearly more comfortable with the source material and concentrate on the elements that make a great film, not the ones that make a great book. Third, the plot and details of this story make for a much more dramatic, intriguing film than the first and although that is not to the credit of the filmmakers, it works nonetheless. I won’t discuss the plot, partially because I don’t want to ruin it and partially because it is too darn complicated, but I will say that this film is a lot scarier and more suspenseful than the first and it takes great advantage of all the characters and concepts from the first film. This film also avoids the classic Sequel Dependency Syndrome, SDS if you will, where a sequel spends so much time revisiting material from the first film that it fails to stand on its own as a film. Chamber of Secrets explores new ideas and characters in the world of Hogwarts School of Wizardry and anything returning from the first film is taken to an entirely new level, namely the new and improved Quidditch sequence. Showing us just another Quidditch match would have been useless since we’ve already seen the game being played in the first film; instead, we are shown a game in it’s most intense and unusual circumstances with Harry being chased by a berserk bludger ball while simultaneously trying to outrun his opponent for the game-winning golden snitch. The result is a scene that is much faster and more suspenseful than the scene we were given in the first film. This kind of filmmaking is extended throughout the entire film and makes this movie work as a film in its own right and as a great sequel as well. Like I mentioned before, this film is much scarier and more intense than the first film so you may want to hesitate bringing the wee ones to this one. However, if you are one of these people out there, and I know several of you, who insist that you will not like a movie about little kid wizards and magical beasts, I was once like you and extremely anti-Potter…until I saw the first movie. I must insist that you try out these movies before declaring that you don’t like them because you are missing out on some great entertainment (if you think I’m being easy, read some of my other reviews and you will see that I am by no means an easy critic to please). This is one of the most entertaining movies of the year and definitely one of the best films for older kids in a long time. Thumbs up from me.