Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (DVD)

Connect to Facebook/Twitter, recommend via email and much more.

---

If you liked the first Harry Potter adventure to hit the screen, 2001's "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone," you'll like 2002's "Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets" equally well.

Preserving largely the same cast, with a few new characters thrown in for good measure, the movie continues the saga of the young wizard in his magical world of young and old fellow wizards, giant spiders, backstabbers, Basilisks, and miscellaneous evildoers. It's more of the same and great family fun.

Of course, this "more of the same" business can be a double-edged sword. While it's certainly good to have Harry and the gang back at Hogwarts, there is an inevitable sameness about the adventures, about the villains, about the settings, and about the climactic ending, all of which can become tiresome in so long a film. I remember giving up on the "Potter" books about a third of the way into the second volume for this very reason. The second novel seemed too much like the first one for me to be spending my time with it. Still, "The Chamber of Secrets" offers up visual delights the book could never hope to deliver even for the most imaginative reader, and it provides wondrous surprises around every turn, making it a safe recommendation for anyone who enjoys fantasy.

Again directed by Chris Columbus, again written by Steve Kloves from a novel by R.K. Rowling, again with music by the prolific John Williams, and again starring Daniel Radcliffe as the young wizard-in-training, Harry Potter, the movie is a compendium of everything we liked about the first film, with the addition of a few new touches.

It's Harry's second year at Hogwarts, but as in "The Sorcerer's Stone," the story begins with Harry once more locked up by his wicked Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia (Richard Griffiths and Fiona Shaw) and heckled by his disagreeable cousin Dudley (Harry Melling). And as in the first installment, he's rescued, and after a brief episode in Diagon Alley he's returned to the magic school, there to face a new challenge and find out new secrets about the ancient castle he now calls home. As before, a decisive battle transpires in the depths of Hogwarts, followed by a surprisingly long epilogue to wrap things up.

This time out, people at Hogwarts are discovered petrified all over the place, and Harry and his friends find the words "The Chamber of Secrets has been opened. Enemies of the heir...beware" written on a wall in blood. According to legend, a thousand years before when Hogwarts was created, one of the founding fathers, Salazar Slytherin, built a secret chamber somewhere in the labyrinthian building, inhabited by a monster, a chamber that would be opened only when a proper heir to Slytherin arrived. Harry is suddenly hearing voices that no one else can hear, speaking in Parceltongue (snake language), and becoming the apparent center of the school's strange new goings on. Is he the true heir to Slytherin, and is he responsible for the petrifications and other bizarre activities of late?

More important than the plot, though, are the characters, new and old. In addition to Harry and his Muggle relatives, Harry's friends Hermione Granger (Emma Watson) and Ron Weasley (Rupert Grint) return to keep him company on his adventures. Hermione is as sweet and charming as ever, but Ron's whining is starting to grate. Professor Albus Dumbledore returns, again played by Richard Harris (in one of his final screen appearances before his passing). Professor Minerva McGonagall also returns, again played by Dame Maggie Smith; plus the lovable giant, Hagrid (Robbie Coltrane); the not-so-lovable Draco Malfoy (Tom Felton); everybody's favorite ghost, Nearly Headless Nick (John Cleese); and the slimy Professor Snape (Alan Rickman).

New characters to the cast are the phony, egotistical, and ingratiating Gilderoy Lockhart (flamboyantly played by Kenneth Branagh in a part originally scheduled for Hugh Grant), whose book "Magical Me" is filled with personal exploits he didn't do; Draco's odious father, Lucius Malfoy (Jason Isaacs); an often befuddled herbalist, Madam Sprout (Miriam Margolyes); a misunderstood spirit no one wants around, Moaning Myrtle (Shirley Henderson); and a mysterious former Hogwarts student, Tom Riddle (Christian Coulson). But maybe the most memorable character of all is not played by a human at all; it's Dobby the House Elf, a computer-animated creation much like Gollum in "The Two Towers." He's a so-ugly-he's-cute kind of little fellow voiced by Toby Jones, who warns Harry not to come back to Hogwarts and thereafter appears to be up to more mischief than good. But give him a chance.

Moreover, not only do the characters make the film a pleasure to watch, so do the visual treats. In an oversight of monumental proportions, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences failed even to nominate the film for its special effects, but audiences can relish them forever on DVD. Savor not only the film's incredible visions of Hogwarts, with its amazing staircases and moving portraits, but enjoy the sights of a flying Ford Anglia, an angry Womping Willow tree, some fractious mandrake plants, a rigged Quidditch match (very exciting but thrown in rather extraneously), a regenerating Phoenix, and a Dark Forest filled with really creepy spiders, among many others.

Once more the Potter fantasies provide a multitude of enchantments, although I still think "The Chamber of Secrets" is too long at 161 minutes for its own good. Director Chris Columbus moves things along at a comfortable if sometimes pedestrian pace, and the plot and characters provide the cozy feeling of a favorite easy chair. It's hard not to like this film despite its minor shortcomings.

Video:
For reasons unknown, the video did not impress me this time as being as clear or clean as on the previous installment. It's still plenty good, by all means, but I noticed a small degree of grain in the opening shots, plus some wavering lines in house shingles that slightly put me off. Colors are natural and well defined, however, in the widescreen anamorphic transfer I reviewed, a transfer that measures a ratio of 2.40:1. The image is not quite so sharply focused nor so rich as that of "The Fellowship of the Ring," but it's close. Dark areas are a bit muddy around the edges, and they don't seem to reveal as much inner detail as on "The Sorcerer's Stone." Nitpicks, really; you'll surely find the video pleasing.