Darker, more entertaining but still overlong and dramatically flat

Rating: 6/10 (5 August 2014)

The Chamber Of Secrets is one of the my favourite HP novels, and it packs loads of excitement and fear without the padding that would affect later novels. This was one of my favourite HP movies in the past as well, but comparing it to the others, it stands out as a perfectly watchable and likable, but ultimately underwhelming adaptation. It's not bad, and certainly an improvement, but it's not perfect.
This is more dark and horror like than the first film. It follows people at Hogwarts getting attacked by a mysterious creature and Harry trying to stop it. It's the closest Harry Potter comes to being horror, with its large collection of giant spiders, scary snakes, dark, shadowy locations and ghosts so naturally it's still a syrup filled kids movie. It is an improvement to the first, but a lot of what was wrong with the first one is also present here.
Chris Columbus improves as a director, and there are many tense and alarming set pieces. John Williams provides another great soundtrack, and the adult cast is still brilliant. The stand out is Kenneth Branagh, who is wonderful as the annoying but hilariously so Gilderoy Lockhart and maybe the best thing about the movie. The child actors are far less annoying in this movie, or at least less noticeably irritating. It's an interesting plot, and it's more exciting and watchable than the first one.
Like the first, this is exactly the same as the book, although despite this it does deviate from the novel a bit more. 160 minutes is far too long for one of the shortest books in the series, and they could have easily streamlined it. The film is enjoyable enough, but it lacks genuine bite and there's little emotional depth while in the book it was more powerful and fun. The most frustrating thing is that it was a natural direction for the series to become darker and more mature and this doesn't take an opportunity to take the series in a new direction. Some of the frightening bits aren't as scary as they could be.
Overall, an improvement and the 5th best HP movie. It's less boring than some of the later ones, but it lacks imagination and style and is a missed opportunity overall.