“Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets” has made it through its first weekend and finished magically. Based on ticket estimates Harry Potter 2 had the third largest opening weekend ever (approx. $87.7 mil.) behind “Spiderman” and “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone”. The opening was a good start for the latest in the Harry Potter series; which first saw the hugely popular novels by J.K Rowling gain international appeal.

The second movie installment has all of the same characters back at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry one year later. As the title suggests a chamber at the school is the basis of the plot and the secret is what Harry and his pals Ron and Hermione must figure out. It only takes them 2 hours and 41 minutes to figure it out too – not bad in the real world but a very long time for a movie. The length of the movie is my first complaint. While there is plenty of action to keep the movie moving there are some lulls that could have been taken out. Plus, unlike the books it is almost a requirement to see the first movie to understand the basic plot developed in the “Sorcerer’s Stone”.

The story follows the book fairly well and the basic sets are the same; Harry’s house on Privet Drive, the school and it’s great hall plus the Quidditch Field. As I stated earlier the same actors played all of the main characters as the first movie. A few new teachers and characters were introduced this time around; Lucious Malfoy (Draco’s father) is especially sinister and well played by Jason Isaacs. It will be interesting to see who plays Dumbledore in the third iteration now that Richard Harris has passed away.

While the sets and characters are the same I think the special affects were taken to a new level. Not to a Star Wars level, but better than the first and a good reason to go and see this movie. Not to give any of the story away, but the flying car was very cool and the ghosts around Hogwarts looked much better this year.

Luckily for me “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone” was on HBO on Saturday night, the day after I saw “Chambers”. Therefore after seeing them back-to-back I can honestly say the first movie was better. It might have been the newness of all of the things I had imagined in my head while reading the books, but I also think the story was better. Of the 4 books already released I also put book 2 at the bottom of the list. Since books 3 and 4 were longer than the first two, I can’t wait to see how long the next 2 movies are going to be – they might have to include an intermission.

A lot of people are going to see this movie and it will do as well as the first in all respects. I think it was a bit too long, but the pluses out number the minuses. The effects were cool, the acting was solid and improved by these child actors and the story, of course, is worth seeing.

Hoover Rating: 4 out of 5 Planets


Talk about Harry Potter & the Chamber of Secrets>>
 

Buy the Soundtrack at amazon.com