Once more the Potter fantasies provide a multitude of enchantments....
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:
The HD DVD video is a marked improvement over the standard-definition version. The VC-1 encoded 1080 resolution does quite a lot to clear up the focus and, to some extent, even clear up the grain. WB present the film in its original 2.40:1 aspect ratio (measuring about 2.25:1 across my screen, due to a small amount of overscan), and the image is excellent, beautifully detailed and delineated. Perhaps to underline Harry's youthful nature in these first installments, the director chose to use quite a lot of bright, flashy colors, some of them perhaps too radiant for ultimate realism, and on occasion facial tones can seem a trifle flush, as well as too strongly lit. Nevertheless, everything looks clean, with barely a hint of print grain in evidence.
Audio:
One could hardly ask for better sound. The Dolby TrueHD 5.1 and Digital Plus 5.1 EX audio tracks exhibit tremendous dynamics and deep bass, strong transient response, and stunning surround sound. Especially in TrueHD you'll hear a more robust response than in the first movie, with a stronger, tauter low end. The bass here literally rumbles the tummy. Then, too, the screams, whistles, flyovers and flybys, even the cries of gremlin-like pixies come from all the speakers and points in-between, which is very impressive. Yet it isn't just the obvious sounds that impress but the little, subtle sounds, too, like the plants murmuring to one another in the mandrake scene. The Quidditch match and the chase for the snitch are pretty harrowing in TrueHD, and the climactic scene in the Chamber of Secrets is one of the most sonically awesome moments in the whole series.
Extras:
The HD DVD carries over a few of the extras from the standard-definition special edition, and all of them are in SD. First up is a sixteen-minute conversation with author J.K. Rowling and screenwriter Steve Kloves, moderated by a chap named Lizo Mzimba. Next up is a visit to Lockhart's classroom, where you're able to view his honors certificates and his required reading for the term. Together, these latter two items add up to a little over a minute. After that is a seventeen-minute featurette, "Building a Scene," that provides a look at the set and production design. Then there is a series of interviews with the young actors playing the students and the adults playing the professors. There are nineteen of these interviews in all, most of them quite brief, made during the time of the movie's filming. Now, speaking of nineteen, that's how many additional or extended scenes WB include on the disc, and they are the highlight of the supplements for me. The expanded scene in the old curiosity shop was my favorite, and I wish they'd left it in the movie, but all of the added scenes are worthwhile, and they play in anamorphic widescreen so they look good, too. Finally, we get a little over a minute recapping "Year One at Hogwarts," I guess for people who haven't seen the first episode or forgot what happened in it, and widescreen theatrical trailer.
The bonuses conclude with thirty-seven scene selections but no chapter insert; English, French, Spanish, and Japanese spoken languages; English, French, Spanish, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and Portuguese subtitles; English captions for the hearing impaired; and, since this is a Warner Bros. HD DVD, the usual pop-up menus, bookmarks, guide to elapsed time, zoom-and-pan feature, and Elite Red HD case.
Parting Thoughts:
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets" is mostly a joy to watch, but it may prove a small chore for younger children and the occasional adult like me. It's not that the film is at all boring and it's certainly imaginative, but there is that "inevitable sameness" about it I mentioned earlier. And it's long. So very long.
Video:
The HD DVD video is a marked improvement over the standard-definition version. The VC-1 encoded 1080 resolution does quite a lot to clear up the focus and, to some extent, even clear up the grain. WB present the film in its original 2.40:1 aspect ratio (measuring about 2.25:1 across my screen, due to a small amount of overscan), and the image is excellent, beautifully detailed and delineated. Perhaps to underline Harry's youthful nature in these first installments, the director chose to use quite a lot of bright, flashy colors, some of them perhaps too radiant for ultimate realism, and on occasion facial tones can seem a trifle flush, as well as too strongly lit. Nevertheless, everything looks clean, with barely a hint of print grain in evidence.
Audio:
One could hardly ask for better sound. The Dolby TrueHD 5.1 and Digital Plus 5.1 EX audio tracks exhibit tremendous dynamics and deep bass, strong transient response, and stunning surround sound. Especially in TrueHD you'll hear a more robust response than in the first movie, with a stronger, tauter low end. The bass here literally rumbles the tummy. Then, too, the screams, whistles, flyovers and flybys, even the cries of gremlin-like pixies come from all the speakers and points in-between, which is very impressive. Yet it isn't just the obvious sounds that impress but the little, subtle sounds, too, like the plants murmuring to one another in the mandrake scene. The Quidditch match and the chase for the snitch are pretty harrowing in TrueHD, and the climactic scene in the Chamber of Secrets is one of the most sonically awesome moments in the whole series.
Extras:
The HD DVD carries over a few of the extras from the standard-definition special edition, and all of them are in SD. First up is a sixteen-minute conversation with author J.K. Rowling and screenwriter Steve Kloves, moderated by a chap named Lizo Mzimba. Next up is a visit to Lockhart's classroom, where you're able to view his honors certificates and his required reading for the term. Together, these latter two items add up to a little over a minute. After that is a seventeen-minute featurette, "Building a Scene," that provides a look at the set and production design. Then there is a series of interviews with the young actors playing the students and the adults playing the professors. There are nineteen of these interviews in all, most of them quite brief, made during the time of the movie's filming. Now, speaking of nineteen, that's how many additional or extended scenes WB include on the disc, and they are the highlight of the supplements for me. The expanded scene in the old curiosity shop was my favorite, and I wish they'd left it in the movie, but all of the added scenes are worthwhile, and they play in anamorphic widescreen so they look good, too. Finally, we get a little over a minute recapping "Year One at Hogwarts," I guess for people who haven't seen the first episode or forgot what happened in it, and widescreen theatrical trailer.
The bonuses conclude with thirty-seven scene selections but no chapter insert; English, French, Spanish, and Japanese spoken languages; English, French, Spanish, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and Portuguese subtitles; English captions for the hearing impaired; and, since this is a Warner Bros. HD DVD, the usual pop-up menus, bookmarks, guide to elapsed time, zoom-and-pan feature, and Elite Red HD case.
Parting Thoughts:
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets" is mostly a joy to watch, but it may prove a small chore for younger children and the occasional adult like me. It's not that the film is at all boring and it's certainly imaginative, but there is that "inevitable sameness" about it I mentioned earlier. And it's long. So very long.
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[release]22552[/release]