The “Harry Potter” phenomenon has its detractors as well as its legions of enthusiasts, but even the biggest Potter-hater must give accolades to books that make kids want to read and movies that keep a roomful of twelve-and-unders quiet for over two and a half hours.
“Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets” is the first sequel to last year’s surprisingly faithful adaptation of J. K. Rowling’s “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone.” This film, like the book, had much to live up to.
The book reads like a sequel, in that the best ideas and the fun of exposition are already spent. But its advantages are that the characters are more defined and familiar, and the style is more smoothly ironed.
Chris Columbus, returning to direct the second film, makes hard choices in what to include, what to skip and what to alter. While his adaptation of “Sorcerer’s Stone” improved on the flow of the first book, that improvement is unnecessary here. What works best in “Chamber” is the familial comfort displayed by the cast. When Columbus errs on the side of rehash, it is because the cast so successfully conveys the characters’ relationships without excess dialogue.
This film is darker than the first, both literally and figuratively, but also manages to be much funnier. The humor is mostly derived from our familiarity with the characters and their familiarity with each other. It is real, believable humor, and it is all the funnier for its honesty.
Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint and Emma Watson have grown nicely into their roles as Harry and his confidants, Ron and Hermione. Other effective performances come from Maggie Smith (“Gosford Park”) and the late Richard Harris (“Gladiator”), whose recent death makes us wish he’d gotten more screen time here.
Robbie Coltrane (“Goldeneye”), as the lovable half-giant Hagrid, suffers from abbreviation more than any other cast member. In fact, the film’s rushed ending depends greatly on our familiarity with Hagrid from the books or the first film.
The middle two hours of the film are the most enjoyable. The beginning lacks urgency in what should be a much more emotional interaction with Harry’s stepparents. The film’s climax is reworked to be more cinematic but falls short, again through a lack of urgency.
Finally, the subplot featuring Kenneth Branagh (“Hamlet”) — “guest-starring” as the narcissistic new professor, Gilderoy Lockhart — gets shortchanged and is not resolved.
These shortcomings bode badly for the films to come, as the books have gotten progressively longer. There are already more noticeable changes in “Chamber” than its predecessor, and many scenes seem chopped to conserve screen time. As the series continues, familiarity with the source material will become increasingly necessary.
A stronger story coupled with a stronger adaptation make “Sorcerer’s Stone” the more successful Harry Potter movie. However, “Chamber of Secrets” is still an enjoyable continuation of the saga, well-suited to an audience growing up on J. K. Rowling’s entertaining books.
Grade: B
