Chamber of Dusty Secrets

Rating: 6/10 (18 July 2013)

Harry Potter the incoming great sorcerer returns to Hogwarts! After watching the first Harry Potter movie, I wasn't sure what to expect from the second one since I am not a fan of Harry Potter movies and I usually don't care about sequels. But because I knew Harry Potter saga works as a complete growing up story, I gave it a try thinking it wouldn't feel like a sequel. That the movie would actually take the main story forward. Unfortunately it ended up feeling like a fill up sequel.
Where the first Harry Potter film already showed us the magical world and it's Oz kind of atmosphere, the second movie is located inside the dusty halls of Hogwards and got only little bit of the original movie's atmosphere. The plot and the ambiance of Chamber of Secrets is overall much darker than in Sorcerer's Stone. The first encounter with Dobby makes us aware of it too. The darker ambiance is at the same time a positive thing that makes this movie a different from the first one but at the same time we lose the Wizard of Oz feeling and the movie becomes more like one of Tim Burton's Gothic movies.
After arriving to Hogwarts we are let known that something scary might be going on and the movie becomes a detective story where the three main characters are working out to solve the ancient secret of the school without anyone else in the school even minding or caring about it. This time the teachers are a bit more alive in the school and the new teachers give some new spice to it and actually seem to even care about their students lives but still way too many characters are nothing more than a background. This is very visible in the scene where Gilderoy Lockhart releases the pixies and points out "Well, I'll ask you three to just nip the rest of them back to their cage" totally ignoring the existence of the rest of the class excluding the main character hero trio.
On the other hand the movie got also its funny moments. I was first afraid that Dobby would turn out to be an annoying unnecessary characters but I find he did suit to the movie very well and was balanced between comical and serious. The last scene where he got his freedom again smoothened the film and helped to get rid of its dark parts. Also the return to the dark forest and meeting up the spider kin was an interesting and nice scene with it dark tension which, unfortunately, might have been even darker and more powerful than the final encounter with Voldemort and the basilisk.
Overall the plot has improved from the first Harry Potter but at the same time the atmosphere, which was very detailed and interesting thoroughly the first movie, is a bit more forgotten in this movie. Music is still giving the nice touch to the film same way as in the first one. I still can't say I liked this movie as much as the first one though. Movie seemed like a fill up sequel that didn't take the main plot forward at all. It was an amusing, balanced and safe movie to but didn't wake up any big feelings or leave any remarkable moments to my mind which would force me to consume the next part right a way. I'm still sure the true fans will enjoy this sequel as much as the other parts of the saga though.