A slight decrease in quality

Rating: 6/10 (5 January 2015)

This film is the second entry in the hyper-successful Harry Potter franchise. In terms of box office, it became number 4 of the year 12 years ago. Like the first, it was directed by Chris Columbus ("Mrs. Doubtfire", "The Goonies", "Home Alone"), who did not return for film number 3, and written by Steve Kloves based on a Rowling novel. Kloves kept writing for all the films that followed afterward. Just like for Columbus, this was also the last performance for Richard Harris. The actor who portrayed Albus Dumbledore died not much later. "The Chamber of Secrets" included some creative inclusions of new characters and story lines, but it also fell flat on developing on some of the parts from the first film. Very early on we are introduced to Gobby, an interesting character and the Potter equivalent to Gollum from "Lord of the Rings". You could almost say that this film has a message against racism with the victims here being Mudbloods. Fittingly, Malfoy's dad who is also new in the movie has an equally Arian look as his son. The Slytherin house is the one who is against letting Mudbloods (children with magic abilities from non-magic parents) into Hogwarts. At the one scene with the new Defence against the Dark Arts teacher (Kenneth Branagh, one of the more forgettable) and Snape I was wondering why they would support the Potter-Malfoy rivalry by letting them fight against each other. I don't expect good teachers to do that. This film is maybe the one that tells us most about the Malfoy dynasty, also about Hagrid and about the history of the different houses, well actually mostly about Slytherin. Too bad the other houses except that and Gryffindor are rarely mentioned. I bet they have some nice stories too.
I was not too big on Moaning Myrtle, who did not add something really interesting to the story for me and same goes for the way they travel by a flying car instead of the train this time. Good job to the car though for rescuing the boys from the spider invasion. Man these spiders were creepy (another "Lord of the Rings" parallel). And Ron's face expressions there were simply priceless. We get to find out a bit more about the Weasleys and especially Ginny plays a bigger role here and gets slowly introduced as a love interest to Harry's character with how she was talking about him all the time during the holidays and how Harry is the one who has to save her in the end in a 1 vs 1 battle again just like in the first film. Okay, this one also has a giant snake, which makes things tougher for little Harry. Then there was this part where the boys transformed into two boys from Slytherin, which was basically a good idea, but the way they constantly kept almost revealing themselves by accident made it a bit ridiculous sadly. For most of the film, Potter is hearing strange voices and wonders if Gryffindor was really the right choice for him, a bit of an identity crisis? A lot of it is also about his ability to speak with snakes as this was an ability the creator of Slytherin possessed as well.
The film is very long, runs for 160 minutes and I believe they certainly could have cut 15 or more minutes and it would not have hurt the film, maybe even helped it. For example the Quidditch game did not add anything for me apart from another random way of Malfoy and Potter going against each other with the usual outcome. I personally felt the film came a bit short compared to the first and also the third (the two best films in my opinion), but it is nonetheless worth a watch and be it only to see the development of characters. Many people may have felt the same as this is one of 2 Potter films that did not score any Academy Award nominations. It got a couple noms for its visual/technical work at the BAFTAs though. However, it has still its funny moments, like Hermione's face expression when she hears the exams are canceled and everybody else is cheering or also the letter to Ron from his family. Lots of cute little details included here again. Only the main plot was not so good this time. Recommended.