Disappointing sequel with too many plot holes and a lot of indifference in the script and direction.

Rating: 4/10 (9 August 2009)

It must be rather relaxing to be a writer, producer or director preparing a new Harry Potter film. Most films are a gamble – will the audience respond enthusiastically? Will the film recoup its money? Will it pull in the crowds? But in the case of these films, there are none of those issues to worry about. The fan-base is so broad and so eager that people would walk through fire to see the films. In the case of Harry Potter And The Chamber Of Secrets, the makers have too often been lazy because they're already guaranteed an audience. The film is uninspired and the script is totally by-the-numbers. It's a showy special effects movie that lacks real heart – just a professionally executed exercise in commercial efficiency.
For the second year at Hogwarts, Harry Potter (Daniel Radcliffe) returns with his friends Ron Weasley (Rupert Grint) and Hermione Granger (Emma Watson). Dark happenings leave an air of fear over the school – a bewitched cat, messages written in blood, strange whisperings, pupils frozen under petrifying spells. No-one is sure exactly what is happening, but there are murmurs that someone could be trying to open the Chamber of Secrets, a forgotten corner of the school with a mysterious history. When Harry finds an old diary belonging to a past pupil know as Tom Riddle Marvolo, he thinks he's close to solving the mysteryor is it all part of some bigger, more sinister plot?
On the positive side of things, it's nice to see the adult cast breathing life into their characters. Newcomers include Branagh and Isaacs, both very good in their respective roles (though the Branagh character comes across as rather pointless), while the likes of Smith, Harris, Rickman and Coltrane are solid in their resumption of roles from the first movie. John Williams scores the film well, and the sets, costumes and special effects look good throughout. Where the film falls down is in its child performances (Grint, for example, wears the look of a kid who needs the toilet when trying to convey nervousness). Even worse are the frequent lapses of logic in the story. There are plot holes galore everywhere you look. A few examples: If Hogwarts could be closed due to danger to its students, then why do they play Quidditch? The game is apparently often sabotaged by someone in the crowd, and players risk decapitation while zooming around below the stands. Crowds turn out in their hundreds to watch THAT! How come none of the older, wiser characters can tell when a piece of Quidditch equipment has been affected by a bad spell? How does Harry manage to speak snake language to unlock the Chamber of Secrets, when earlier he confessed that he doesn't realise that he's speaking a different language at all? Why does the magic car rescue them from the spiders when it has been made evident earlier that it is broken? In fact, how does the car even know where they are, or that they're in danger? Perhaps in the book these things are explained, but in the film there's an air of laziness running through the story. I'd happily overlook these goofs if it weren't for the fact that the film seems to pride itself on attention to plot details. Overall, this is weaker than the first film and proves once more that Chris Columbus is the wrong director to trust when bringing fondly–regarded books to the big screen (Bicentennial Man, anyone?)