Movie Review: Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (2002)

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets improves in almost every way over the first Harry Potter film. It’s still Chris Columbus directing, it’s still childish in tone, but it has better performances, better visual effects, and much better action and suspense.

It’s not like it’s perfect. The character of Dobby is definitely irritating. But the movie does improve in most ways.

Take the Qudditch scene, for example.

The Quidditch scenes in these movies are typically just giant distractions, not advancing the plot in anyway. If you’re a kid, your sense of wonder may take over here, and that’s fine. But if you’re an adult, generally these scenes are a bore.

The Quidditch scene in the first movie was pretty boring. It went on for way too long, and Harry just sat around watching most of the time. Here, we get an exciting action scene out of it, and the plot is even advanced with the whole Rogue Bludger thing.

One of my favorite things about this movie, though, is definitely Kenneth Branagh as Gilderoy Lockhart.

Branagh is a really great actor, and while he’s above the part to a certain extent, he fully commits, playing the role as ridiculous as possible. He becomes a very entertaining and even interesting character.

I also love the stuff with the basilisk. It looks great, and it’s genuinely frightening.

Rating: 8/10