Improves on the first film

Rating: 7/10 (25 July 2007)

Second time around we get a slightly better outing for Harry Potter and Company. There's a little more fun to be had, a greater sense of danger and mystery and a few dark moments, indicating the route the series was going to take. I've always considered Chamber of Secrets to be one of the best of J.K. Rowling's books, and the studio does a more than adequate job of bringing it to the screen.
As you'd expect there's the same house style present as in the first film - a little bland, slightly cartoony but again it's a little better than first time around. The actors are growing into their roles well - in an alternative universe we might have had Spielberg directing and Haley Joel Osment in the leading part. I for one am tremendously glad that the film makers stuck to their guns and kept the cast British. Osment is a superior actor to Radcliffe (at least at this point in their careers) but it would have taken away the verisimilitude if he'd landed the role.
Highlights this time around include the flying car, the "who dun it" - or should that be "who is it" and the spiders. Boy those spiders! There's also another exciting Quidditch match - it beats doing "Educational Gymnastics" at school any day! The climax to the movie is brilliant and genuinely gripping. What can I say? I'm just a kid at heart.
At just over two and a half hours it is rather long, though.