More coherent than the first

Rating: 8/10 (3 January 2003)

A clear improvement over the previous film - this is more a story than a sequence of set pieces and the (necessary!) thinning out of the material to reach feature film length was done here much more intelligently. The first film made the mistake of doing a proportional reduction of the material across the board, leaving too many things in there, and inevitably in a rather underdeveloped state. This still happens here occasionally, e.g. Harry's trip to Knockturn Alley has been reduced to the point where it contributes so little that it would have been better to cut it altogether, but this is more an exception than the rule. The final product is still rather long though and thus one might have gone a step further and e.g. ditch the spiders.
There were a few occasions at the beginning of the film when I briefly flinched - some characters and set pieces were too visibly introduced to the audience, for instance Mrs Weasley's first referral to Diagon Alley was a little too exuberant to ring true. I would have transferred that exuberance to Ginny, after all it could (for all we know) her first time there.
Compared to the book, the film follows more (perceived) American children's taste, e.g. the irony is toned down (I was disappointed about the omission of the Weasley twins' sarcastic exploitation of Harry's suspected Heir of Slytherin status, although this was perhaps an obvious sacrifice to make) and the level of sentimentality increased, especially in the sugar-coated ending.