Every Series of Stories must Have One One Puzzling Chapter

Rating: 8/10 (23 April 2006)

"Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets" is the second movie in a series of movies about the life of a teen aged wizard. It follows the first movie "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone".
The second movie in any trilogy is generally disliked. Why? Well, simply because it doesn't leverage the rags to riches, nerd to hero story lines that succeeded in the first volume of the trilogy.
When George Lucas made "the Empire Strikes Back", he knew that the deal to make a third movie "Return of the Jedi" was already sealed. In "the Empire Strikes Back", Mr. Lucas had the luxury to put his characters to the test, knowing he needed no happy ending. He knew the happy ending would come in the third movie.
Clever trilogy story tellers will establish a hero in the first volume, make the audience doubt the hero in the second volume, and reaffirm the hero in the third volume.
Thus, the second volume is always the frankest exploration of a hero's development.
This film supplies a necessary episode in a series of stories. It helps make the other stories make sense.