HARRY POTTER AND THE CHAMBER OF SECRETS (2002)  *1/2

Reviewed 11/15/02

The first sequel in the HARRY POTTER franchise does not just prove the adage that less can be more but that more is way too much.  Director Chris Columbus and company have once again fashioned a special-effects extravaganza putting spectacle before story or character.  The seemingly gratuitous all-star British cast of Kenneth Branagh, John Cleese, Robbie Coltrane, Alan Rickman, Maggie Smith, and the recently deceased Richard Harris can not provide this dull, mediocre material any prestige.  There is no earthly reason this film has to be bloated to 2 hours and 40 minutes.  It could have amply tortured the audience with tedium in half that time.

Once again, young wizard Harry Potter (Daniel Radcliffe) starts off beset by his monstrously cartoonish foster parents before being ferreted away to Hogwarts School of Magic.   Harry is accompanied by his pals, Ron Weasley (Rupert Grint, whose bungling sidekick act is getting tiresome) and Hermione Granger (Emma Watson, whose intensity is getting more captivating), when he comes along a petrified cat and a message warning that the Chamber of Secrets is now open.  The Chamber, created by one of the school’s dissenting founders, is supposed to house a terrible beast that will purify the school of those wizards who are not pure of blood.  If this sounds like an Aryan Nazi plot, perhaps more than happenstance has the platinum blond Lucius Malfoy (an embarrasingly bewigged Jason Isaacs) and his son Draco (Tom Felton) at Harry’s throat.  The two Malfoys are obviously villains not just because their names call to mind Satan and dragons and they have bad taste in hair, but they are rich and look down on the working class Weasley family.  So what does all this have to do with the ever increasing number of petrified Hogwarts students, fleeing spiders, an obnoxious house elf named Dobby (voiced by Toby Jones), a self-pitying ghost named Moaning Myrtle (Shirley Henderson) who haunts the girls’ lavatory, the diary of one Tom Riddle (Christian Coulson), and the secret past of Rubeus Hagrid (Robbie Coltrane)?  That’s what Harry and friends intend to find out in this ludicrously convoluted plot that feels like “Bewitched” meets the “Hardy Boys” with a $100 million budget.

This is one of those stories in which the only reason Harry doesn’t perform what is by far the most sensible and practical action and spill everything to wise old headmaster Dumbledore (Richard Harris) is because the movie wouldn’t be able to have Harry as the (completely irresponsible) hero.  That’s not all that is wrong with plot logic.  Dobby, who should get the Jar Jar Binks award for most annoying character, wants to save Harry, but is in every way a cure that is worse than the disease.   Dobby also seems more powerful than his master, which makes no sense.

Lots of action happens only for effect.  Weasley’s car door opens so Harry can dangerously hang out of it, Ron suddenly loses control of the car right before landing so the pair can have a confrontation with an angry tree, and when a Quidditch game goes awry as a rogue bludger starts to destroy everything in sight (don’t ask), none of the wizards present tries to stop the game.  Yes, all this happens in the book, but that’s no excuse.   Once again, Columbus is too faithful to the source and leaves in mounds of material unrelated to the main plot that should have been excised.  Once again, most of the spells and magic have the wonderment found in an episode of “I Dream of Jeannie.”  The movie also ends on a note of gross sentimental self-congratulation.

Insofar that the movie has a saving grace, it is Kenneth Branagh hamming it up in the role of Gilderoy Lockhart, an inept, self-promoting wizard who basks in his own manufactured fame.  The character of Ginny Weasley (Bonnie Wright) plays a significant part in the plot but is never developed whatsoever with the two minutes of screen time she gets (at least while she is conscious), and the extremely proactive and adept Hermione gets sidelined along the way because if she didn’t, she would no doubt have been the star instead of glory-hound Harry.  This is a movie that should go down the toilet just the way Moaning Myrtle does.  Thank goodness a truly talented filmmaker, Alfonso Cuaron (A LITTLE PRINCESS, Y TU MAMA TAMBIEN), will be taking over the reins for the next installment.