So I watched Harry Potter and The Chamber of Secrets…

This is by far my favourite Harry Potter film (at least at the time of writing this). It’s the last movie with the childlike innocence and sense of wonder that I liked about the first movie. All the movies from this point on became overly obsessed with being dark and having Voldemort in them. Now Voldemort is still a factor in this movie, yes, but his presence is very subtle and there are other dangers for Harry, Ron and Hermoine to worry about.

Okay, basic plot: Harry Potter is back. After surviving a year at the world’s most dangerous school for wizards and witches, Harry can’t wait to go back for more. Unfortunately a dark scheme has being put into place to make sure Harry doesn’t survive this year at Hogwarts. Undeterred by the warnings of a mysterious House Elf named Dobby, Harry returns to Hogwarts but will he survive now that the heir of Slytherin has returned and unleashed the horrors of The Chamber of Secrets? Yes, yes he will because he’s the titular character and there are six more of these movies to go.

As I said earlier this is my favourite movie of the franchise. The thing I loved most about it was the mystery. Trying to figure out the secret of the Chamber, the monster that lives in it and the person responsible for all of this, made for one of the most entertaining movies of the lot. I think I also liked that Hermoine wasn’t in this movie as much as in the previous ones. Look I love Emma Watson and I eventually grew to love Hermoine but let’s be honest, she’s a bit of an annoying know-it-all. Yes, this is probably a defence mechanism borne from a childhood full of being teased because of her intelligence and she was a lot more sincere in this movie but I only started developing an appreciation for her character in the next movie. Which is ironically when puberty started for Emma and Hermoine…which is when other things started to develop (relax, Emma Watson is older than me so calm down before you start calling me a pedo).

I also enjoyed the break of pace away from Voldemort being the main villain. We later find out that Voldemort and his supporter – Lucius Malfoy – are responsible for everything but throughout the entire movie Voldemort is only referenced once. The movies following this one became very Voldemort-heavy and I feel we lost one of the villain’s best qualities – the mystery around him. Mystery is what makes this movie so great.

Of the many things I enjoyed in this movie, I think the fight scenes are one of the best. We only get one, short fight scene between Harry and Draco but I saw it as snippet of the future fight scenes we might get. Everyone’s always talking about how Dumbledore is so great; everyone’s always talking about how Voldermort is so great, eventually you’d expect these two legends to get into fight. The little duel between Harry and Draco with them using different spells on each other to prove their supremacy really excited me and I couldn’t wait to see what would happen if two more experienced wizards dueled. Sadly I would be disappointed in later movies but we’ll get to that later.

Overall, this movie is fantastic. Dobby is a cute, loveable goof, Harry and Ron show their resourcefulness in handling problems without Hermoine and the movie manages to stay light while still managing to scare you. My favourite of the series and worth a watch 8/10