Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets [2002]

Deep-vein-thrombosis-inducing length and an overwhelming air of self-congratulation are the dominant tones of this second entry in the unstoppable franchise, but stretches that play well: an encounter with a giant spider and hordes of smaller nasty arachnics manages to work even in a year which features stiff competition from Eight-Legged Freaks and with Shelob as yet unseen in the Rings cycle, an amusing performance from Kenneth Branagh as a preening glamour-boy wizard who turns out to be an arrant fraud and coward, a nice deployment of all Shirley Henderson's weirdest mannerisms in a ghost role, lots of tiny likable detail [the moving portraits], J.K. Rowling's clever but satisfying plot formulation [the mystery of who the villain is plays better than the first time round, with an interesting late-film baddie] and an array of senior British acting talent it's hard to argue with [though the elegiac tone of Richard Harris's last performance couldn't have been predicted]. On the minus side is a CGI elf who has to be the most irritating creature on screen since Jar Jar, sadly indifferent performances from the three junior leads [they don't have the freshness they showed last time round but fail to add more depth even as the film tries for darker tones] and a tendency to stop for everyone to smile and applaud after scenes when that ought to be the audience's job.

The bustle and broad comedy is there to balance the scariness, but cuts into the moments of dramatic magic. This Harry is mildly bothered by evil and the possibilities of his backstory, but there's no sense of growth or trauma or of the making-of-a-hero [Rowling misses a lot that's in her model, The Sword in the Stone] and Daniel Radcliffe just flashes the odd dimpled grin while Rupert Grint burps slugs and Emma Watson gets frozen stiff for the last half of the film to keep her out of the way. Chris Columbus gets the job done, but getting Alfonso Cuaron – an interesting choice rather than a safe pair of hands - to take over feels like a bright idea that might shake things up to the benefit of the series.

Some of the big set-pieces – the flying car zooming over the train, the underground duel with the basilisk – go on well past the point of magic, reviving memories of those Disneyish fantasy musicals of the 1960s which failed to match Mary Poppins. The underlying problem of elitism, of dividing the world into wizards and 'muggles', with the second-class humans represented by the hideous foster family who abuse Harry every way except but sexually or violently, is addressed by bringing on the ‘pureblood' wizard Lucius Malfoy [Jason Isaacs] and hinging the plot on his faction's fascist hatred of muggles and 'mudbloods' – magical offspring of nonmagical parents.
KIM NEWMAN

First published in this form here.

Visit Kim's Official Website at www.johnnyalucard.com