Harry Potter 2

Rating: 5/10 (15 July 2010)

Spoilers in this review.
In Chamber of Secrets, Harry Potter goes back to school for his second year of learning to be a wizard. Whereas the first movie was more episodic, this one tends to be more cohesive, focusing on the mystery of the Chamber.
Students are being attacked at Hogwarts by an unseen monster, and messages are being left that claim it is because someone opened the Chamber of Secrets. We are told that this is the hiding place of a monster who is supposed to get rid of anyone who doesn't have magical parents, and the one who has opened it is the modern day servant of the evil wizard who created the chamber.
It turns out that a "memory" of Voldemort possessed one of the kids and used them to open the chamber. Harry finds the entrance to the chamber and confronts Voldemort. He isn't real, but nearly gains enough power to come to life before Harry destroys him and the monster, and everything goes back to normal.
This episode didn't leave me wanting more as much as some of the others. My favorite thing about it was the comedy: the opening scenes with Harry's family, and the character played by Kenneth Branagh, who was nicely over the top as the self absorbed fraud. The ending was a bit anti-climatic, and there are many reasons why Christopher Columbus was not a very good choice to direct the Harry Potter series. Each of the films that have come after these first two have been much better done. This one spends way too much time explaining things rather than showing us. I think it is probably the weakest of the bunch.