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Harry Potter
and the Chamber of Secrets |
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| Rated: PG |
2002 |
Color |
161 mins |
| Starring:
Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint, Emma Watson, Maggie Smith, John Cleese, Robbie Coltrane, Richard Harris, Kenneth Branagh, Alan Rickman |
| Directed
by: Chris Columbus |
| Written
by: Steve Kloves |
| Based
on the novel by: J.K.
Rowling |
| Music:
John Williams |
| Movie
Co.: Warner
Bros. |
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Critique
Section
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HugeReviews.com's
Official Rating System:
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Wimpy
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HugeReviews.com Reviews:
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Harry
Potter & the Chamber of Not-Very-Enchanting-Secrets
by Michael Flanagan
Solid
The thing about the Harry Potter series is
that it’s being released at a time when people are being
over-zealous about one sci-fi/fantasy franchise and
overly-critical about another.
But both of those have more energy and character than
these films put together. I
liked Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone well
enough. It wasn’t
great, but it was a good time, and when the situation presented
itself, I didn’t mind seeing it twice. I even own the DVD, though that purchase was made in Canada
for the purpose of getting the film with its real title, Harry
Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, a much better concept
than the Americanized version, anyway.
The best parts of that first movie were the magical ones,
the discovery of this wonderful new world of secrets and spells
and creatures and friends, all of which reminded me of my own
experiences going to college.
Sans brooms. Harry
left the imprisoning real world of home to go to a world of
magic, and those scenes were truly wonderful.
In Harry Potter and the Chamber of
Secrets, the magical world has become just as miserable as
the real world, except with snakes and spiders. |
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Harry Potter’s world is still there.
We still have Hogwarts, wizards, the great hall,
Quidditch, brooms, owls, and rats.
And the additions are quite good—Kenneth Brannagh as
Gilderoy Lockhart is fantastic, almost in a self-referential
way. It’s just that, by the very nature of the beast, it is no
longer about discovery. And
the danger isn’t as tangible.
While in Stone Voldemort’s impending attack was
always clouding the lives of the students, this is just an
uncomfortable mess of people turning to stone, wailing murdered
ghosts, and evil rich fathers.
And there’s so much of this that it leaves no time left
for what every student needs when going away to school: sheer
enjoyment. Danger and villainy is effective in fantasy, but only when it
is contrasted against the world that our heroes protect. In this movie, it’s as if the filmmakers want us to look at
the first film as that world, and accept the constant darkness
of the second. |
You'll Believe a Boy Can Fly...You
won't really care anymore, but you'll probably believe it.
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| But what they don’t grasp—and
what Star Wars and Lord of the Rings have such a
strong understanding of—is that each film must be its own
enjoyable entity without the others.
There will be those who only see one Harry Potter, one
Lord of the Rings, or one Star Wars.
And that one movie has to stand on its own as a film,
without a history, or a book, or a future.
Otherwise, you betray the purpose of the film.
I haven’t read “Chamber of Secrets,” and I really
don’t want to. But without doing so, the movie is like an inside joke I’m
not a part of. But
with this one, even that’s not enough incentive to read it |
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| Awards
& Nominations: IMdb |
Full
Cast & Credits: IMdb |
| Links:
Official
Site, |
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