Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets

As a fan of the books and the first Harry Potter film I was looking forward to this, the latest instalment in the Harry potter series.

To those who are not familiar with Harry Potter (presumably you live in remote Siberia) he is a young wizard boy who attends a school for witches and wizards. He has a mysterious past, his mother and father were killed by a powerful evil wizard and Harry defeated that wizard when he was a baby in his crib. With a thunder bolt scar to show for this achievement Harry has special abilities above his peers and is somewhat of a celebrity in the wizard world.

Throughout the series of books Harry continually has to prove himself to his school rivals and his odd ball teachers whilst being on his guard in case the evil wizard ‘Voldemort’ should return with his followers.

This film picks up where the last ended, and while it’s not a necessity that you should have seen the first film it would certainly help you pick up the story line this time around.

The same characters feature here, Robbie Coltrane as the jolly and loveable Hagrid, the schools giant grounds man. Harry Potters friends Hermione and Ron, and Richard Harris makes his last appearance on screen as Professor Dumbledore the schools wise headmaster. When you watch him on screen its sad to think he died shortly after the film was finished, he will be hard to replace in the future Harry Potter instalments.

The plot in this film is not at all straight forward; it is pretty confusing to those who are not familiar with the first film and the books. That said it is a good story with a nice revelation at the end, but I think lots of people will find it quite tricky to follow. Having said that fans of the Harry Potter books will be pleased to hear this film sticks very rigidly to the text, as a result it lasts for 3 hours!

It has been marketed as having funnier bits, scarier bits and more action that the first film. This is true, however I do not think it is as good, it lacks some of the magic the first film had, this could be down to the weaker source text. In my opinion the Chamber of Secrets is the weakest of the Harry Potter books to date. The director and cast do a great job of translating it to the big screen in an exciting and cohesive way.

The new characters are all great, Doby the house elf is a totally computer generated character and he is very funny, and looks totally real! Kenneth Branagh as the conceited Professor Lockhart is great too and he clearly enjoyed the role.

Daniel Radcliffe is fantastic once again as Harry Potter, and Rupert Grint as Ron is brilliant, once again contorting some hilarious faces and generally being a good laugh.

This is a really fun film, I would recommend it as I would the first, it definitely has a magical quality. I’m now looking forward to the next film, The prisoner of Azkaban which I enjoyed most of the books to date.

Jamie O'Connell