Wizard - even for a muggle

Rating: Null/10 (2 January 2003)

Harry is now in his second year at Hogwarts in this welcome return to witchcraft and wizardry. As the eponymous hero, Daniel Radcliffe is now a rather taller, but more assured, 13 (by a magical coincidence, he shares a birthday - 31 July - with Harry himself and creator J K Rowling). Most of the characters from the first film are back, but new ones include engaging Kenneth Branagh as the charlatan Gilderoy Lockhart and the voice of Toby Jones as the (computer generated) house elf Dobby (who bears more than a passing resemblance to the Gollum in "Lords Of The Rings 2" issued about the same time).
Again Rowling has been closely involved with the script and again Chris Columbus is the director, so that the film is a faithful reflection of the book (so I am told), and generally speaking this is a darker world than "The Philospher's Stone" with a giant spider, an even huger snake and much scarification and petrification. At 2 hours 41 minutes, it is too long for the young audience at whom it is aimed (at the performance I attended, little ones were constantly running to the toilet), but it is so utterly entertaining that they won't complain.
Footnote: If you wait till the end of the horrendously long credits, you will see a snippet featuring the alleged Professor of The Defence Against The Dark Arts.