Rating: 4/5
Classification: PG
Year of release: 2002
Run-time: (Theatrical Version) 2 hours 41 minutes
(Extended Version) 2 hours 54 minutes
Director: Chris Columbus
Cast: Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint, Emma Watson, Kenneth Branagh
Genre: Adventure, Family, Fantasy, Mystery
This review contains SPOILERS
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets is the second film in the series and based on the novel by J.K. Rowling, this movie is about Harry Potter (Daniel Radcliffe) has been receives a warning not to return to Hogwarts this year by Dobby the house-elf (Toby Jones). After Harry ignores this warning and returns to Hogwarts an ancient evil starts attacking students, ideally muggle-borns leaving them paralysed and putting the lives of the students and teachers of Hogwarts at risk. While not everyone may consider this movie to be better than the first one, this movie still continues the Harry Potter movies in spectacular fashion.
As all great sequels should do, Chamber of Secrets does its job of raising the stakes and getting to know the characters better and we find out more fascinating history about Hogwarts and the wizarding world in general. This movie has a subtly darker story than the first one and makes the challenges in the first movie almost look like an opening skirmish in comparison, of course the stakes aren’t nearly as high as the Deathly Hallows films but the challenges our heroes face in this movie seem to be more difficult than in the first film. After all, attacks on Hogwarts from the basilisk almost caused the school to be closed permanently. From the beginning of this movie we have the house-elf Dobby who along the way we know that he genuinely cares for Harry and has his best interests at heart. But in the first half of the movie he intends to stop Harry from going to Hogwarts at every turn because he is that concerned about Harry’s safety and goes through some very drastic measures just to warn Harry in the first place. Vice versa Harry also has to jump through extra hoops because he ignores Dobby’s warnings like taking a flying car to Hogwarts and flying away from a rogue bludger.
One of my favourite character arcs that Harry goes through in this movie is how both the story and many of the characters question whether Harry has been mistaken for either a heroic wizard or a villainous one. The entirety of Hogwarts learns that Harry can speak Parseltongue, a rare ability that only the very darkest of witches and wizards have meaning they can talk to snakes. After this happens plenty of rumours are discussed among the students leading some of them to believe Harry is actually the Heir of Slytherin. The only student who is able to control the monster later revealed to be a basilisk (a giant snake) hidden in the Chamber of Secrets, a very well camouflaged chamber built by Salazar Slytherin himself to house the basilisk with the purpose of getting rid of Hogwarts students who in Salazar’s view are unworthy to study magic i.e. muggle borns.
I also enjoy many other scenes in this movie that hint at Harry’s dark side such as the sorting hat telling Harry that he would’ve done well in Slytherin house. There are also a couple of great scenes between Harry and Professor Dumbledore (Richard Harris, in his final time playing Dumbledore due to his death a few weeks before the release of this movie) where we see eerily similar interactions that Dumbledore had with Tom Riddle (Christian Coulson) while the latter was a student at Hogwarts. To top all of this off there is a scene at the end of the movie when Dumbledore reveals to Harry the night Voldemort gave Harry his scar that Voldemort transferred some of his powers to Harry and that is why Harry can speak Parseltongue. This scene also does very well at gradually giving subtle hints about the connection between Harry and Voldemort further explained in later movies.
Our three main characters are also well developed and we learn interesting new things about them, I’ve already talked about Harry’s character development. For Ron (Rupert Grint) we spend a bit of time at his house and find out more about his family particularly his parents and younger sister Ginny (Bonnie Wright), who of course plays a pivotal part in this movie. Ron may also have a broken wand for most of this movie and we discover that he has a big spider phobia, but he does successfully drive a flying Ford Anglia at the youthful age of 12. The flying car is without a doubt in my opinion one of the most memorable set pieces in the entire series. Last and certainly not least Hermione (Emma Watson) has some of the best character moments for her in the entire series, first of all we find out that her parents are muggles, and when I first saw this movie that was very surprising given how smart she is. Not saying that muggle borns can’t be that smart but it was just surprising that for someone as smart as Hermione I thought her parents would more likely be veteran witches and wizards.
Towards the end of the movie when Hermione is petrified by the basilisk, I was also surprised the first time I saw this movie because Hermione is such an intelligent student that I thought she’d be one of the students who would be least likely to get petrified, even among the muggle-born students. Alas proving how much of an important character Hermione is, even after she is petrified she still manages to help Harry and Ron by not only identifying the monster in the Chamber of Secrets as a Basilisk, but also that this serpent can kill people just by looking at it in the eye. John Williams’ musical score also gets taken up to a whole new level with Fawkes’ theme, one of the best musical themes in the series. Like with the first movie I don’t think it matters which version you watch out of the theatrical or extended cut.
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets continues the series in highly satisfying fashion, thanks to suitably raised stakes and further well developed characters from the first film as well as new characters some of who go on to be franchise favourites. More fascinating history about the locations and set pieces of this movie also help cement the evolving rich mythology that makes these movies so beloved. Also there is a scene at the very end of the credits that I wouldn’t say you have to see, but those interested can give it a look if you like.