Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (***)
review by Jon Waterman

Young wizard Harry Potter is off for his second year at school, where he learns to hone his magic skills. The previous year was quite eventful and this one promises to be the same, because he’s been warned that bad things will happen upon his return. Soon, people are turning up paralyzed and death threats written on the walls in blood pop up. Suspicions arise as to who may be committing these villainous acts. People are becoming weary of the new teacher, Hagrid the groundskeeper and even Harry himself. To find out for sure, they must locate the un-findable chamber of secrets.

It’s a new year and a new title, but the characters aren’t changing. There are more of them now, but the ones we met in the first film, “HP and the Sorcerer’s Stone,” aren’t given any new depth or personality. I don’t feel like I know Harry, Ron, Hermione or the supporting characters any better now than I did at the start of the film. But despite not growing character wise, the movie does expand on the universe itself. The new people are quirky and fun as are the new magical things presented to us. It fails to capture the feeling of awe and wonderment that you get from the first movie. For lack of a better term, it’s less…magical.

That doesn’t mean the movie isn’t good. It is. It’s entertaining and cute and mostly family friendly (there could be some scary stuff for littler kids). But, I feel like the story saves it from being a boring mess. I haven’t read any of the books, so I don’t know how accurately they are adapted from J.K. Rowlings’ original text, but I found it to be quite exciting and mostly packed with events and happenings to keep it moving. It can be a little repetitious at times with re-visiting certain locations over and over, but overall it flows through the whopping 160-plus minute running time without much problem.

If you’re a fan of the books or the previous movie, then you’ll probably enjoy this second release. I found it to be fun, but I still felt like more should have been done. Since we already know there will be a series of movies, I want to see the space and the characters grow (and I’m not just talking about age). There doesn’t seem to be a firm grip and they are relying on the settings and people’s knowledge of the books already out there to carry them through. I don’t think it’s enough. It’s still a fine film and a sequel worth seeing.

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