Good second installment in the Harry Potter series.

Rating: Null/10 (19 April 2003)

Interestingly, most professional critics and many "users" say this second Harry Potter movie is better than the first. However, as of this date both of them have identical IMDb ratings of 7.3. I actually like the first one more, maybe because in it everything is new, and I especially enjoyed seeing how Harry began to recognize his powers, and the introductions of all the main characters and Hogwarts. Secondly, each character, and actor, is a year older which doesn't always improve them. Like Hermoine, I thought she was much cuter when she was a year younger. Ditto with Harry.
Inspite of all that, I enjoyed the film, and my 8-year-old granddaughter especially liked it, so much in fact that she wanted to watch it again right away. I resisted, maybe we will watch it again tonight. A bright spot in all this, the studio made a great decision to avoid over-pricing the DVD. I bought it for $15, now I own the first two, and I expect to buy each of the next as they come out. Although I'm not really a collector at heart, I figure my grandchildren would appreciate having the full set eventually.
As one would expect, the DVD is very sharp, and the 5.1 surround sound is used very well. Although I have not watched any extras yet, the listing appears interesting and the menu is much more easy to use than was the first one. Overall a clear winner for Harry Potter fans.
(Additional thoughts. Thinking back to various action/fantasy movies which resulted in a series of films, e.g. Back To The Future, Superman, Batman, Indiana Jones, Lord of the Rings, Romancing the Stone, are examples that immediately come to mind, I always found the first one to be the best. Is that because the first movie reveals most of the new secrets of the story, and we find that most interesting? The second, third, etc. in many cases just continue various stories around what we discovered in the first movie? Or do we just quickly become bored with a concept? Several sequels of superb movies are currently in the make, The Matrix, X-Men, Spiderman, Charlie's Angels come to mind. It will be interesting to see how they do. "Mission Impossible 2" is one that I actually like a lot better than the first one.)