Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets: A Retrospective Review

To celebrate the upcoming release of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 I'll be re-watching the seven films released so far and giving a look back on a decade of cinematic Potter. For updates on when the reviews go up be sure to follow me on Twitter @laj105

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What’s it all about?

‘Part Deux’ sees Harry Potter being warned not to go to school by a three foot tall elf who has serious self-harm issues. Ignoring the advice, Harry goes back anyway and finds students being petrified by an unknown monster controlled by the heir of Slytherin, one of the original founders of Hogwarts. Harry hears voices in his head, Hermione gets called a nasty word that begins with ‘m’ but doesn’t end in ‘otherf*cker’ and Ron has a malfunctioning wand (which may be a metaphor for something).

How long is it?

A whole eleven minutes longer than the first, at 161 minutes.

Coming out only twelve months after the first, surely this is more of the same?

Yes most of the original cast and crew would return for the second film, which began production days after the release of Philosopher’s Stone, but Chamber of Secrets is a better film in almost every department. The film looks better, the cast are more natural, and despite being longer it feels shorter.

So director Chris Columbus stepped up his game?

Well many of the improvements to the film are technical ones, but Columbus’ directing does loosen up slightly in this one. The camera moves around far more, and although there’s still an awful lot of exposition to get through the pacing feels better this time around.

So who’s new to the cast?

In no particular order we have...

Miriam Margoyles (Professor Sprout) - Appears in one comic scene and does the job she was hired to do, i.e. look like a sprout and make people laugh.

Kenneth Branagh (Gilderoy Lockheart) - Clearly the star of the film, Branagh’s scenes are still hilarious nine years on. Sadly he disappears for most of the second half of the film, but he does get the last laugh with a short post-credits scene showing his final book, ‘Who Am I?’

Jason Isaacs (Lucius Malfoy) - Coming up a close second to Branagh, Isaacs also seems to be having the time of his life as the panto villain of the movie. Oozing menace, he is most definitely A BAD PERSON, and there’s a little sneak peak at the killing curse late in the movie when he almost kills Harry Potter with it (before being sent flying by Dobby).

Mark Williams (Arthur Wealey) - Prompting the desire to go and watch Fast Show clips whenever he is on screen, Williams slots in well with the Weasleys already cast but seems a bit aggressive during his first introduction to Harry Potter. Asking Potter about the function of a rubber duck, I always get the feeling that he might use his fork to stab him if he doesn’t answer to his satisfaction.

Hugh Mitchell (Colin Creevey) - Gets a couple of laughs, but worth mentioning because he went from this... to this. Puberty can be a cruel, cruel thing.

Shirley Henderson (Moaning Myrtle) - Another great comic bit, this time involving a 37 year old playing a 13 year old (waits for Harry Potter nerd wrath for getting Myrtle’s age wrong). Maybe I was more innocent when watching the film the first time, but her attempts to win over Harry made me wonder how a relationship with a ghost would actually work. She appears again in Goblet of Fire so I’ll think more about this before I write up that film.

Edward Randell (Justin Finch-Fletchley) - Has a bloody MASSIVE face. Seriously, it’s like American Dad just walked onto set.

Christian Coulson (Tom Riddle) - Not-quite-Voldemort turns up and is played extremely seriously by Coulson. So seriously that he comes across as slightly constipated (I’m sure there’s a YouTube video somewhere titled ‘Volde-fart’) but he does ok. I always thought he was asked back to play Tom Riddle in Half-Blood Prince, but apparently that was someone called Frank Dillane.

Robert Hardy (Cornelious Fudge) - Fudge makes his first appearance here, but seeing as he has a larger role in future films I’ll talk about him more for those reviews.

Haven’t you forgotten someone? Or rather, some-elf?

Dobby the house-elf also makes his debut appearance, making an awful racket while jumping on Harry’s bed (presumably he was annoyed about not getting the part of Gollum in The Two Towers). Toby Jones, who voices the character, has since gone on to be a highly respected character actor with appearances in Doctor Who, In Cold Blood and St Trinian’s to his name (spot the odd one out quality fans!) and his performance is still the best thing about the character. Dobby got a bit of flak at the time for not being anywhere near as complex or effectively realised as Gollum, but in fairness that’s a little like comparing Walls ice cream to Ben and Jerry’s.

But what about the returnees? Are the kids any better?

Thankfully yes, all three of the main’s seem to be more comfortable with their roles. It helps that puberty isn’t raging so much, with their heights and voices not ranging up and down like in the first one. Emma Watson even gets to cry like a proper actress. Grint is still does little more than mug and gurn whenever something scary / funny is happening, but that’s more a fault of the writing than his performance. Radcliffe is a lot stronger as Potter, and even starts doing his ‘Garth from Wayne’s World grin’ that has always been a favourite of mine (for evidence see his reaction to Hagrid arriving back from Azkaban).

With so much going on almost all the returning adults are relegated to reaction shots and occasional lines of dialogue. Sadly this was Richard Harris’ last movie, and he seems even weaker than he did in his first appearance as Dumbledore. Still, his few scenes with Harry are given added poignancy because of this, and it’s hard not to get a little emotional when he talks about Fawkes’ death and eventual resurrection.

One negative though... NOT ENOUGH SNAPE!

The cast is stronger, what else is better?

As I bad-mouthed them so much last time special credit has to go to the special effects and their huge improvement. There are no rubber digital humans to be seen, and the increase in quality pays off in the few action scenes of the film. Quidditch is even more exciting than before (though this owes just as much to some excellent sound editing) and the finale in the Chamber of Secrets comes across like a modern Harryhausen movie, complete with giant basilisk. Disappointingly though the wizarding duel still comes across as slightly lame, as the spells mostly just knock people over without doing much that interesting.

What about the look of the film?

Like blinking away bleary eyes, Chamber of Secrets looks gorgeous after the muddiness of Philosopher’s Stone. New cinematographer Roger Pratt paints everything in bold colours and inky blacks, and Hogwarts itself is lit more like a real castle and less like a movie set. The scene where Harry steps back in time via Tom Riddle’s diary is strikingly shown in near complete sepia, and Gryffindor common room looks positively inviting.

In purely practical terms, the giant spider puppet for Aragog is quite special, and I would argue one of the creepier images in the whole series (I am an arachnophobe though so maybe I’m biased).

Funnily enough the musical score is credited to John Williams, although William Ross was brought in to conduct the scoring sessions due to clashes in Williams’ diary. As a Star Wars fan it’s funny to hear a lot of cues that are seemingly lifted straight from Episode II: Attack of the Clones (which was scored by Williams earlier that year)

Any other thoughts?

While the first film was plagued with awful moments of OTT comedy designed to keep the little ones happy, Chamber of Secrets is much more restrained. The Dursleys are still the most ‘out there’ element, but their slapstick feels like a fun prologue to the main event rather than the endurance test that they were prior. Also for a series that is said to get darker with each installment there are some real scary moments, most related to Harry hearing a voice that threatens to kill. It’s real horror material, and really pushes the boundary of what’s acceptable in a PG.

However lest it seem like I’m being too kind to Columbus there are still moments of cheese and melodrama that grate, none more so than the ending of the movie. Perhaps knowing that this would be his final Potter film during shooting, Columbus lays on the schmaltz with a big fat ladle, and weirdly decides to make Hagrid the hero of the film and the recipient of a standing ovation from the whole of Hogwarts. Ok, so maybe his name had been cleared from his prior expulsion, but he still had barely 15 minutes of screen time, AND he nearly got Harry and Ron eaten by giant spiders.

Final verdict

Despite stronger films to come, Chamber of Secrets still stands as a marked improvement on part one, and the first proof that this franchise had legs. Big changes are waiting just around the corner though...