Jasonic's Favorites: Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
Hello, and good evening, Internet!
The start of the school year in my town last week only means it's time for a new year at Hogwarts for fans of the series!
Released in 2002, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets is regarded as one of the best Harry Potter films by many -- it certainly is the longest surprisingly. As a sequel to the first movie, it works well both as a continuation and on its own due to having a virtually similar plot to its predecessor and there not being nearly as much baggage in this movie compared to a majority of the later films. With the first movie cementing the film franchise's success, this second movie naturally became a critical and financial success and has been regarded as better than the first similar to its book counterpart. Part of that has to do with the fact that this film, like any good sequel in a trilogy/series, becomes darker in terms of story, tone, and aesthetic, something I always attribute to the success of Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back. I would say this is a fitting comparison since Harry Potter as an overall plot/franchise draws a lot of similarities to the Original Trilogy of Star Wars, even going as far as sharing the same composer, John Williams -- at least for the first three films in Harry's journey. That said, in addition to having the same composer, director, and a majority of the same actors as the first film, Chamber of Secrets ends up being very consistent with the first film, which was a model for a sequel that was almost unheard of at the time, but started to become more of a trend following the success of film serieses such as this movie and Sam Raimi's Spider-Man trilogy from around the same time. With all that this film has been lauded for in the past by both critics and fans, is it truly a good film overall you may ask? Let's head back to Hogwarts, pick up our broomsticks, and fly straight into this movie to examine why I think Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets is one of the best in its franchise!
*SPOILER ALERT* (although this film is almost as old as my generation so chances are you have seen it at some point along with the others)
For starters, the story picks up a few months after Sorcerer's Stone left off; in it, Harry Potter (Daniel Radcliffe) is with the Dursleys once more under their restrictions when an unexpected visitor named Dobby the house-elf (voiced by Toby Jones) warns Harry not to return to Hogwarts this year. Despite Dobby getting Harry into serious trouble with the Dursleys, the Weasleys including Ron (Rupert Grint) manage to free Harry with their father's flying car and take him to their home of the Burrow where Harry gets to know the family better. With Ginny (Bonnie Wright) set to start school that year, Harry and the Weasleys gather their supplies at Diagon Alley and attempt to catch the train to Hogwarts in Platform 9 3/4 only for Harry and Ron to be mysteriously blocked off and forced to take the flying car to school instead. Although they risk exposure of the wizard world as a result and potentially face expulsion, Harry and Ron are thankfully allowed to stay at school, serving detention with their new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher, Gilderoy Lockhart (Kenneth Branagh). During a detention session, Harry hears a mysterious voice in the walls of the school moving to kill and follows it only for him, Ron, and Hermione (Emma Watson) to discover Mrs. Norris, the cat of Argus Filch (David Bradley), to have been Petrified with the words "The Chamber of Secrets has been opened, enemies of the heir... beware" written in blood on the walls nearby. While the witnesses believe Harry and friends did the deed, fortunately, Headmaster Albus Dumbledore (Richard Harris) believes that they are innocent, leading to the trio to investigate the matter. Seeing as their rival in the Slytherin House, Draco Malfoy (Tom Felton), called Hermione a "Mudblood" previously, Ron suspects that Draco could be the Heir of Slytherin, Salazar Slytherin having previously created the Chamber of Secrets a thousand years ago in the early days of the school. What the trio finds during their investigation leads to a spell-binding mystery of twists and turns that results in the Ministry of Magic's actions against the school and its teachers meaning that Hogwarts will never be the same.
Like I mentioned before, Chamber of Secrets ends up being a dark turn for the story of Harry Potter in terms of events and stakes, the plot really upping the ante with the severity of the conflict and the actions taken to resolve it. Whereas the previous film was a mostly light-hearted magical adventure with dark history and elements, this one has darker twists and turns with what turns out to be a monster called a basilisk being released from the chamber to kill any and all Mudbloods -- magic users with Muggle parents. Fortunately, for those characters who end up seeing the basilisk's eyes, they do not see them directly and are therefore Petrified instead of killed. This darkness is aesthetically aided by the fact that the Warner Bros. and movie title logos at the beginning are slightly darker -- a trend that continues throughout the franchise -- the darker castle and Forbidden Forest sets, and the darker backstory with the basilisk outright killing a student. I'd also say that one advantage the movie has over the book is the fact that it portrays it well aesthetically; in the books, things just happen in the text, leaving the reader to visualize it themselves and it may not always be accurate to the film adaptation. Once they get around to the movie, however, that emotional darkness is clearly felt in the visual and musical aesthetic -- John Williams doing an excellent job once again like he always does. It also helps the movie feel slightly more mature not only in its aesthetic choices, but also in the fact that a few of the male child actors (Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint, and Tom Felton for example) had hit puberty by the time of this movie. When I was a young child (pre-pubescent, I might add), any time a young boy actor matured in terms of either hair growth or their voice dropping, I automatically found the newer movies/episodes of a series they were doing to be cooler and better because they looked/sounded cooler than when they were younger. For that reason among others, I could imagine being a young boy when this movie came out and preferring to watch it over and over again rather than Sorcerer's Stone because to me the characters would have been "older and cooler" -- I mentioned in the last review how I never had the luxury of watching the Harry Potter movies as a young kid so present me often dreams of what that would have been like.
Like Sorcerer's Stone before it, Chamber of Secrets also follows its book pretty closely while also having the advantage of telling things a little more concisely than the novel; for example, the subplot of Percy Weasley (Chris Rankin) and Penelope Clearwater (Gemma Padley) that was in the book is cut in favor of showing them together once at the beginning greeting Nearly Headless Nick (John Cleese). This creates a nice nod to that aspect of the book without delving too deep into it so as to cause the movie adaptation to potentially lose focus by giving Percy and Penelope too much attention. For that matter, there are certain aspects from the book that are cut or altered entirely such as the book having a scene celebrating Nearly Headless Nick's 500th "deathday party" not being in the movie at all likely to preserve the focus. Whereas in the novel the Weasley's damaged flying car is seen in the Forbidden Forest by Harry and Ron before their meeting with the acromantula, Aragog (voiced by Julian Glover), in the movie, it acts as a deus ex machina by magically driving in on its own to rescue them from the spiders. These changes by no means make the movie bad rather I agree with the conciseness some alterations or removals present so as to tighten up the plot and scene flow a bit. I mentioned already that this was the longest Harry Potter film in terms of runtime and it certainly shows by the end since it faithfully abides by the book's resolution following the basilisk battle and Harry eliminating Tom Riddle's diary. Had they cut the resolution with Dobby and the reveal that he is (or was) the house-elf slave of Lucius Malfoy (Jason Isaacs), Dobby's arc and Lucius' inclusion would have felt very incomplete and we wouldn't have seen the more altruistic side of Harry learning to be selfless even toward the people who annoy him. For those complaining about this movie being "too long", that's my defense as to why that resolution ought to have remained intact no matter what. That and while the plot structure and progression are eerily similar to Sorcerer's Stone as in the book, I often believe that in the world of sequels that it ought to imitate the first story in some way while doing its own thing and expanding upon the world and characters.
For that matter, each actor is given great direction for their character performances as in the first movie; Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint, and Emma Watson play their golden trio characters of Harry, Ron, and Hermione exceptionally well as always, with Rupert Grint in particular displaying his portrayal of Ron's cowardly side comically well. Many book fans find this aspect of movie Ron to be character assassination, but I personally find it comical how he's able to make wimpy facial expressions and squeaky whimpers, especially when he's confronted by all the big spiders -- his worst fear. The actors who play the Dursleys don't do as much this time around, but Richard Griffiths still plays a convincingly abusive Uncle Vernon in the ways in which he threatens and punishes Harry by making him wish he were never born and bolting up his bedroom window respectively. All the professors' actors such as Alan Rickman's Professor Snape, Maggie Smith's Professor McGonagall, and Richard Harris's Professor Dumbledore excel in their roles with what they're given and while Snape doesn't do nearly as much in this movie as in the others, Rickman is still a standout no matter what -- may he RIP. This was also the second and last of Richard Harris's portrayal of Dumbledore with the actor dying around the time this movie finished production and to see him give one final performance in caring for Harry and friends, assisting covertly through Harry's loyalty, which summoned Fawkes the phoenix, and awarding the school with points to each house that assisted in the conflict makes for an emotional farewell to the actor (Michael Gambon has sometimes gotten a bad rep for not having the same level headedness as Richard Harris, but his performance didn't bother me -- though we will get to that in the following films). In addition to other reprisals such as Tom Felton's Draco Malfoy and Robbie Coltrane's Hagrid, a lot of the newer cast members -- live and voice performances -- do an awesome job as well; Jason Isaacs's Lucius Malfoy is a rather shady character with a cunning performance to boot, serving well as the catalyst in the way he smuggles Tom Riddle's diary to Ginny as well as the reveal of him being Dobby's abusive master. The voice performances such as Toby Jones's Dobby and Julian Glover's Aragog are also well done with the former being a standout -- both very comical and befitting of a small house-elf. With as many actors and side characters that are in this movie, I could be here naming them all day; all in all, pretty much all the Harry Potter films have excellent acting and this one was arguably one of the best in terms of overall actors!
The special effects are also a considerable step up from the first movie by a longshot; whereas Sorcerer's Stone had some jumpy, old school CGI, this movie was a step in the right direction for making everything look more real. Dobby, for example, looks a lot more like he's actually there when he interacts with Harry though you can still tell the CGI quality is not present day standards quite yet -- it was only 2002 after all. Despite their limited appearance, the Cornish pixies also make for a fun one-off scene with their scheming facial expressions, erratic movements, and mischievous personalities with the way they mess up the classroom until Hermione performs the Immobulus spell on them. Like Dobby, however, their graphics look a bit incomplete, but the quality is good for the time and their presence reminds me so much of the LEGO Harry Potter games where you have to cast the aforementioned spell to make them drop objects and such. The basilisk is also one of the best-looking giant snake monsters put to film that I've seen with its darkened scales, razor sharp teeth, and piercing yellow eyes that the characters cannot directly look at lest they die. There is also quite a number of practical effects to be more in line with the previous film's use of such; while I cannot tell if the wideshots of Aragog are practical or CGI, the closeups of him talking -- which freaked my sister out when she was younger -- were definitely practical as they looked like they were actually there compared to the numerous CGI spiders as they surrounded Harry and Ron. There even appeared to be a practical shot of Harry stabbing the basilisk in the head with the sword of Godric Gryffindor, which may have been the only practical shot of the basilisk from what I could tell. Not only are there practical shots of the creatures in this film, but even the shot of the Chamber of Secrets entrance opening in the girls' lavatory seems to be practical and done possibly by a machine that the set designers created. Whether they do it through means of computer animation or practical sets and models, the special effects teams of Harry Potter have done a fantastic job on many of the films including this one.
As with pretty much all the Harry Potter films, this film is fantastic in its own way, but I'd say it's arguably one of the best in the franchise. It's a sequel that establishes both a darker and darkening tone of the franchise quite well, adapts the source material in a concise manner, has excellent acting all around, and improves upon the special effects a great amount both in practical effects and CGI. I would have included a paragraph about John Williams' score as well, but it goes without saying that his songs are excellent with standouts such as "The Spiders" and "Meeting Tom Riddle" being the ones I remember most. As I said before, I often daydream about had I watched this franchise as a kid and the fact that I love this film in particular so much even as an adult is a testament to how well done it is as it propels along one of my favorite all-time book/film franchises. The Wizarding World of Harry Potter is, after all, one of the most iconic fantasy franchises of all-time even if J.K. Rowling gets a bad rep in this day and age, but there's no denying the legacy she has left on the world with this stellar series full of great themes and a world of imagination. That said, I give this movie a solid A and recommend it to fans of the original and those continuing to watch the franchise all the way through.
Thank you all for reading and I will see you in the next review!
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