Opinion

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets

Dir: Chris Columbus
Starring: Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint, Emma Watson

"Dobby Has Come To Warn You Sir."

Towards the end of a grim summer holiday in Privet Drive, Harry Potter receives a visit from a house-elf called Dobby, who comes with a warning that Harry should not return to Hogwarts, or his life will be in danger. And it turns out that Dobby is extremely determined to prevent Harry's return. Once he and his friends are back in the school, however, some very nasty events begin to happen, as several of the pupils are petrified by an unknown force, and a message in blood is found on a wall: "The Chamber of Secrets has been opened - enemies of the heir, beware." Is the heir of Slytherin roaming the school?

Well, this is an interesting film to review - like its predecessor, it has a built-in audience of book fans, and also like its predecessor, on the surface, there's no real reason for anyone else to go and see it. Which is a pity, as there's a great deal to appreciate here.

Chamber of Secrets has a lot of advantages over the first Harry Potter film; the exposition which slowed The Philospopher's Stone almost to a standstill in places is largely ignored, the assumption being made that audiences will know about the school, Voldemort, quidditch, and Harry's personal history; the leading actors are all a little older and a lot more confident (Radcliffe especially, who has moved from boy to young man entirely in the last year), and several of the adult actors who were underused the first time round (Julie Walters and Maggie Smith among them) get a bit more to do here, to the overall advantage of the film.

In keeping with its source material, the film is darker than last time, and has a definite air of unease and menace about it. The knowledge that a pupil actually died the last time the Chamber was opened creates real drama, and the scenes in the forest, featuring hoards of giant spiders, ought to be enough to give impressionable youngsters extremely satisfying nightmares for weeks.

Christopher Columbus demonstrates very clearly why he was exactly the right director to handle these first two films, and take responsibility for establishing the core visual elements of the series. He generally strikes the difficult balance between child-like and childish extremely well, and the sets and effects style create an extremely solid and convincing environment for the stories to take place in. The Chamber set itself is absolutely stunning.

The quibbles I have arise from a combination of realisation and source material - I just don't think that the approach Columbus and Richard Harris decided on for Dumbledore works at all - granted he's an elderly man, but he's still supposed to be an immensely strong character and a powerful figurehead for the school, not the twinkling old grandfather they've chosen to make him. Though that will hardly be an issue in the future, given Harris's death and Alfonso Cuarón's upcoming directorship of at least the next film. Additionally, it's a pity that the energy which goes into the creation of the tension and occasional darkness of the film has to be undermined by the entirely too-twee-for-words wrap-up scenes that Rowling closes out the books with.

But it's definitely an entertaining way to pass a few hours on a miserable Winter day.