Review of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (2002) by Buddy A — 09 Sep 2012

BOTTOM LINE: Not the best Potter, but one of the best sequels you will ever see.

"Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets" is a better movie than its predescessor in a lot of ways, but it also falls short where "Sorcerer's Stone" did not: staying true to its source material. "Chamber of Secrets" takes a lot for granted in molding itself into a successful motion picture, but this is not a bad thing when the final product is this good. It's still one of the better movies in the Potter series and worth every single amount of your time.

The reason the movie is not perfect is because Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint, and Emma Watson were not yet at that level of acting that made the later movies really great and because it simply was not the best book as well. The twists are nothing special really. Harry can talk to snakes because Voldemort could, even though we knew from nearly the beginning of "Sorcerer's Stone" that Harry has connections with Voldemort. Another example is how the filmmakers decided to focus on Ginny's obsession with Tom Riddle's diary. She is almost in love with that thing in the movie when in the book she was kind of scared of it but nonetheless attracted. Nearly everything else in the movie is done right though. Moaning Murtle is annoying, which is expected and pleasing. The Chamber of Secrets is a cool place, like we imagined it would be when reading the book. Harry is confused about being a Parseltongue and does not understand why this is relevant.

It's truly a really good movie and even if you've seen it fifty times, you should see it again. "Heck yeah.".