The world's most famous pint-sized wizard is back and Harry Potter and The Chamber of Secrets is darker and more disturbing than its predecessor.

Rating: Null/10 (9 December 2002)

The film, now showing at the Regent Theatre in Te Awamutu, carries a PG certificate and rightfully so as the story features the petrification of countless characters and writing on the wall in blood! These scenes occur following an encounter with the beast let loose from the dreaded Chamber of Secrets. The whole plot revolves around the fact that the millennium-old chamber has been opened in an attempt to rid Hogwarts School of Witchcraft from mud bloods - those students whose ancestry includes non-witches. It's up to the main cast, Harry Potter (Daniel Radcliffe), Ron Weasley (Rupert Grint) and Hermione Granger (Emma Watson), to conduct the investigation into who has let the creature out, breaking all the school rules in the process. Witchcraft is practiced aplenty throughout the film and there are all sorts of nasty consequences, including a scene where a spell backfires consigning Weasley to eat slugs. The chemistry between the trio, directed by Chris Columbus, is believable but all three have visibly grown since last year's film. All three are much taller and the voices of both 13 year-old Radcliffe and 14 year-old Grint are beginning to break. There's even a hint of stubble on Radcliffe's face during one shot and a subtle hint of romance between Weasley and Granger, played by a 12 year-old. The larger cast read like a who's who of the British film industry with the likes of Shakespearean actor Kenneth Branagh doing a turn as the Defence Against The Dark Arts teacher Gilderoy Lockhart, Maggie Smith as colleague Minerva McGonagall, the late Richard Harris as head teacher Albus Dumbledore, traditional heavy Alan Rickman as Severus Snape, Scots favourite Robbie Coltrane as Rubeus Hagrid, former Monty Python star John Cleese as the ghost of Sir Nicholas de Mimsy-Porpington, also known as Nearly-Headless Nick, and Educating Rita star Julie Walters as Molly Weasley. No doubt Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets will be a hit with fans of the JK Rowlings books.