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Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets

(2002)

(SPOILERS) More of the same really, continuing Chris Columbus’ unswerving mode of following Steve Kloves’ sticking like glue to JK Rowling’s early structural template. Another mystery on the Hogwarts premises (you’d have thought the teachers would try to keep the kids clear of mortal peril until they’d at least graduated) that inevitably ties in to Voldermort. It’s marginally more honed this time, though, which means that when Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets – even the title is eminently resistible – finally knuckles down, it flows better. Unfortunately, it also has several major red flags to contend with.

Dobby. Sure, he’s supposed to be annoying, I know. Gollum by way of Jar Jar Binks. But did he have to be so wretchedly designed (not remedied by house elves of later instalments)? Some of the CG in this film is pretty good (the Basilisk, for one, and the flying car for another), but Dobby is never more than Smeagol-lite in attributes. Toby Jones voices him with duly pathetic dedication, but a fitting end would have been to have the elf’s head shoved in a blender, rather than being granted release from service to Lucius Malfoy.

It’s also a considerable problem how unwarrantedly long this movie is. Does it need to be pushing towards three hours, particularly when you could happily lose most of the first 40 minutes and barely notice? Doubtless Harry will be redone as a Netflix TV show at some point and at such a time this will seem positively spry, but as it is, the only verdict can be guilty as charged of indulgence in the first degree.

Exhibit C is Gilderoy Lockhart, the Frank Spencer of the wizarding world. It’s a decent performance from Sir Ken, much breezier and possessed of a light comedy touch than his recent Poirot, but the character beggars belief. Are we really to believe that a narcissist celebrity wizard is venerated by other wizards despite being patently inept at every turn? Why does he continually volunteer to perform spells in front of his peers if he knows he’s terrible at them? JK must have at least considered this point, as at one point Gilderoy imparts that the only thing he is (conveniently) any cop at is memory charms (by means of which he stole credit for others’ achievements). Unless he was intending to perform one on the entirety of Hogwarts, though, it doesn’t really wash.

Countering that are several sterling additions, though. Jason Isaacs is magnificently composed in his malevolence as Lucius, and there’s an enjoyable scene (relatively) early on where he and Mark Williams’ Arthur Weasely cross paths. Very different characters and performers, but it’s a treat to see them bring that into play (likewise, it would have been nice to see more between Lockhart and Snape, so evident is the latter’s disdain for the former).

Shirley Henderson’s Moaning Myrtle is also memorable. Nice to see Robert Hardy as the Minister for Magic too, who instantly seems like he’s always been there. I have to say, however, I find Robbie Coltrane’s “ever so ‘umble” giant-of-the-people serf irritating for the assumption we’re supposed to love him. That’s the class system for you.

As with its predecessor, elements of the novel’s plot are rather lost in translation. The gist of the opening of the Chamber of Secrets is explanatory enough, and the reveal regarding Tom Riddle is reasonably sound; that, through the awesome power of anagrams, he’s a younger version of Voldermort attempting to manifest. But it entirely escaped me that Lucius (at least in the books) didn’t realise the diary’s properties when he stowed it in Ginny Weasely’s cauldron (apparently to rid himself of an incriminating dark object and bring Arthur into disrepute – which all seems bit thin). Perhaps Voldermort should have been a touch clearer in his instructions.

By and large, Chamber of Secrets is amiable but very forgettable; it’s never a good sign when the most annoying elements (Dobby, Gilderoy) are the ones that stick in the mind. There is, fair’s fair, an amusing sequence in which Harry and Ron transform themselves into Slytherin boys in order to find out what Draco knows, but there’s also another of those quidditch games to get confused by. And Rupert Grint’s still streets ahead of the other juniors performance-wise at this stage, with Emma Watson’s rather over-emphatic delivery leaving her trailing a distant third.

So Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets was Columbus’ last real involvement with the series (he retained a nominal producer credit); after this, the results would be universally more engaging and less sugar-coated (Columbus would try his hand at Young Adult again with Percy Jackson, but his directing career has been noticeably subdued since). Also Richard Harris’ final appearance as Dumbledore, sadly. The first two entries are much as I remembered them, undemanding, overly beholden adaptations that give non-fans little reason to invest themselves in the material. Fortunately, that would change in one fell swoop.

Agree? Disagree? Mildly or vehemently? Let me know in the comments below.

Comments

I never strangled a chicken in my life!

Rope (1948) (SPOILERS) Rope doesn’t initially appear to have been one of the most venerated of Hitchcocks, but it has gone through something of a rehabilitation over the years, certainly since it came back into circulation during the 80s. I’ve always rated it highly; yes, the seams of it being, essentially, a formal experiment on the director’s part, are evident, but it’s also an expert piece of writing that uses our immediate knowledge of the crime to create tension throughout; what we/the killers know is juxtaposed with the polite dinner party they’ve thrown in order to wallow in their superiority.

They'll think I've lost control again and put it all down to evolution.

Time Bandits (1981) (SPOILERS) Terry Gilliam had co-directed previously, and his solo debut had visual flourish on its side, but it was with Time Bandits that Gilliam the auteur was born. The first part of his Trilogy of Imagination, it remains a dazzling work – as well as being one of his most successful – rich in theme and overflowing with ideas while resolutely aimed at a wide (family, if you like) audience. Indeed, most impressive about Time Bandits is that there’s no evidence of self-censoring here, of attempting to make it fit a certain formula, format or palatable template.

You must have hopes, wishes, dreams.

Brazil (1985) (SPOILERS) Terry Gilliam didn’t consider Brazil the embodiment of a totalitarian nightmare it is often labelled as. His 1984½ (one of the film’s Fellini-riffing working titles) was “ the Nineteen Eighty-Four for 1984 ”, in contrast to Michael Anderson’s Nineteen Eighty-Four from 1948. This despite Gilliam famously boasting never to have read the Orwell’s novel: “ The thing that intrigues me about certain books is that you know them even though you’ve never read them. I guess the images are archetypal ”. Or as Pauline Kael observed, Brazil is to Nineteen Eighty-Four as “ if you’d just heard about it over the years and it had seeped into your visual imagination ”. Gilliam’s suffocating system isn’t unflinchingly cruel and malevolently intolerant of individuality; it is, in his vision of a nightmare “future”, one of evils spawned by the mechanisms of an out-of-control behemoth: a self-perpetuating bureaucracy. And yet, that is not really, despite how indulgently and glee

Oh, you got me right in the pantaloons, partner.

The Party (1968) (SPOILERS) Blake Edwards’ semi-improvisational reunion with Peter Sellers is now probably best known for – I was going to use an elephant-in-the-room gag, but at least one person already went there – Sellers’ “brown face”. And it isn’t a decision one can really defend, even by citing The Party ’s influence on Bollywood. Satyajit Ray had also reportedly been considering working with Sellers… and then he saw the film. One can only assume he’d missed similar performances in The Millionairess and The Road to Hong Kong ; in the latter case, entirely understandable, if not advisable. Nevertheless, for all the flagrant stereotyping, Sellers’ bungling Hrundi V Bakshi is a very likeable character, and indeed, it’s the piece’s good-natured, soft centre – his fledgling romance with Claudine Longet’s Michele – that sees The Party through in spite of its patchy, hit-and-miss quality.

I'm an old ruin, but she certainly brings my pulse up a beat or two.

The Paradine Case (1947) (SPOILERS) Hitchcock wasn’t very positive about The Paradine Case , his second collaboration with Gregory Peck, but I think he’s a little harsh on a picture that, if it doesn’t quite come together dramatically, nevertheless maintains interest on the basis of its skewed take on the courtroom drama. Peck’s defence counsel falls for his client, Alida Valli’s accused (of murder), while wife Ann Todd wilts dependably and masochistically on the side-lines.

A herbal enema should fix you up.

Never Say Never Again (1983) (SPOILERS) There are plenty of sub-par Bond s in the official (Eon) franchise, several of them even weaker than this opportunistic remake of Thunderball , but they do still feel like Bond movies. Never Say Never Again , despite – or possibly because he’s part of it – featuring the much-vaunted, title-referencing return of the Sean Connery to the lead role, only ever feels like a cheap imitation. And yet, reputedly, it cost more than the same year’s Rog outing Octopussy .

She was addicted to Tums for a while.

Marriage Story (2019) (SPOILERS) I don’t tend to fall heavily for Noah Baumbach fare. He’s undoubtedly a distinctive voice – even if his collaborations with Wes Anderson are the least of that director’s efforts – but his devotion to an exclusive, rarefied New York bubble becomes ever more off-putting with each new project. And ever more identifiable as being a lesser chronicler of the city’s privileged quirks than his now disinherited forbear Woody Allen, who at his peak mastered a balancing act between the insightful, hilarious and self-effacing. Marriage Story finds Baumbach going yet again where Woody went before, this time brushing up against the director’s Ingmar Bergman fixation.

You can’t climb a ladder, no. But you can skip like a goat into a bar.

Juno and the Paycock (1930) (SPOILERS) Hitchcock’s second sound feature. Such was the lustre of this technological advance that a wordy play was picked. By Sean O’Casey, upon whom Hitchcock based the prophet of doom at the end of The Birds . Juno and the Paycock , set in 1922 during the Irish Civil War, begins as a broad comedy of domestic manners, but by the end has descended into full-blown Greek (or Catholic) tragedy. As such, it’s an uneven but still watchable affair, even if Hitch does nothing to disguise its stage origins.

Miss Livingstone, I presume.

Stage Fright (1950) (SPOILERS) This one has traditionally taken a bit of a bruising, for committing a cardinal crime – lying to the audience. More specifically, lying via a flashback, through which it is implicitly assumed the truth is always relayed. As Richard Schickel commented, though, the egregiousness of the action depends largely on whether you see it as a flaw or a brilliant act of daring: an innovation. I don’t think it’s quite that – not in Stage Fright ’s case anyway; the plot is too ordinary – but I do think it’s a picture that rewards revisiting knowing the twist, since there’s much else to enjoy it for besides.

Do you know the world is a foul sty? Do you know, if you ripped the fronts off houses, you'd find swine? The world's a hell. What does it matter what happens in it?

Shadow of a Doubt (1943) (SPOILERS) I’m not sure you could really classify Shadow of a Doubt as underrated, as some have. Not when it’s widely reported as Hitchcock’s favourite of his films. Underseen might be a more apt sobriquet, since it rarely trips off the lips in the manner of his best-known pictures. Regardless of the best way to categorise it, it’s very easy to see why the director should have been so quick to recognise Shadow of a Doubt 's qualities, even if some of those qualities are somewhat atypical.

Now In Full Color, with a Happier Ending

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