Released just one year after the first film, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets builds on what came before as we move into Harry's second year at the Wizardry boarding school Hogwarts. With some new faces joining the returning cast, this film does a fine job expanding the universe established in the first film while conjuring up some fun and thrilling new adventures.
As the film opens, Harry Potter (played by Daniel Radcliffe) is back living with his relatives, Uncle Vernon (played by Richard Griffiths) and Aunt Petunia (played by Fiona Shaw) when he is visited by a house elf named Dobby who warns Harry that he mustn't return to Hogwarts for his life is in danger. After Harry refuses, Dobby intentionally ruins Uncle Vernon's social gathering, causing Uncle Vernon to swear that Harry will never return to Hogwarts. It's not long though before Harry is rescued by Ron (played by Rupert Grint) and his twin brothers Fred and George (played by James and Oliver Phelps) in their Dad's flying Ford Anglia car and taken back to the Weasley family home. There he is greeted by their mother Molly (played by Julie Walters), irate that the boys took the car, and father Arthur (played by Mark Williams), whose first instinct is to ask how the trip went (typical Dad response). After a quick trip for school supplies, where Ron and Harry are reunited with Hermoine (played by Emma Watson), it's time to head back to Hogwarts where they are greeted by all the familiar teachers and staff along with some new faces including the narcissistic new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher Gilderoy Lockhart (played by Kenneth Branagh) and Ron's younger sister Ginny (played by Bonnie Wright). Soon enough, the trio of young heroes also find themselves drawn into a new and dangerous mystery that threatens the students of Hogwarts as students start turning up petrified and ominous messages warn of the opening of the fabled Chamber of Secrets.
Chris Columbus returned to direct the second film working from a script from Steve Kloves. No longer burdened with establishing the school or the wizarding world, they hit the ground running with a far more well paced film. At the same time, they do a great job realizing the wizarding world of J.K Rowling's source novel such as showing us what a wizarding family is like with the Weasleys. In many ways it's not too different, but in other ways it is, like Arthur Weasley quizzing Harry about non-magical folks artifacts such as the use of a Rubber Duck. Likewise, seeing such memorable sequences as the adventures in the flying Ford Anglia are well directed and suitably thrilling. John Williams returns to score the film as well, bringing the same fantastic themes he brought to the film as well as building on them and creating all new ones.
The acting in this one is dependably good given the seasoned actors we have. In the second outing, you can see how much Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson and Rupert Grint have grown, not just physically but in their acting skills from the previous film (sadly, the Harry Potter series would become the fantasy film equivalent of Boyhood, with all the kids' adolescence captured on film for all time). Kenneth Branagh joins the cast for this film as the self-obsessed wizard Gilderoy Lockhart and it is clear he is having a blast in the role and the fun is contagious. From the moment he introduces himself to his class, walking past a picture of himself painting a self portrait, I am cracking up every single time. This film also expands the role of Harry Potter's rival, Draco Malfoy (played by Tom Felton), who manages to quietly steal several scenes, including quite possibly the best improvised line in the series, "Reading? I didn't know you could read."
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets is one of my favorites of the series, with solid direction and writing, solid acting and good pace (despite this film actually being the longest in the series, clocking in at two hours and forty minutes). It has plenty of great fun within it even if this entry is a bit darker that the previous film and the series would get even darker from here. There is plenty to enjoy with this one, even if it does have the icky scene with all the spiders.
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