What's developing here, it's clear, is one
of the most important franchises in movie history, a series of films
that consolidate all of the advances in computer-aided animation, linked
to the extraordinary creative work of J.K. Rowling, who has created a
mythological world as grand as "Star Wars," but filled with more wit and
humanity. Although the young wizard Harry Potter is nominally the hero,
the film remembers the golden age of moviemaking, when vivid supporting
characters crowded the canvas. The story is about personalities,
personal histories and eccentricity, not about a superstar superman
crushing the narrative with his egotistical weight.

In the new movie, Harry (Daniel Radcliffe, a little taller and deeper-voiced) returns with his friends Ron Weasley (Rupert Grint) and Hermione Granger (Emma Watson,
in the early stages of babehood). They sometimes seem to stand alone
amid the alarming mysteries of Hogwarts, where even the teachers, even
the august headmaster Albus Dumbledore (Richard Harris), even the learned professors Snape (Alan Rickman) and McGonagall (Maggie Smith), even the stalwart Hagrid the Giant (Robbie Coltrane) seem mystified and a little frightened by the school's dread secrets.

Is
there indeed a Chamber of Secrets hidden somewhere in the vast pile of
Hogwarts? Can it only be opened by a descendent of Salazar Slytherin,
the more sinister of the school's co-founders? Does it contain a
monster? Has the monster already escaped, and is it responsible for
paralyzing some of the students, whose petrified bodies are found in the
corridors, and whose bodies are carried to the infirmary still frozen
in a moment of time? Do the answers to these questions originate in
events many years ago, when even the ancient Dumbledore was (marginally)
younger? And does a diary by a former student named Tom Marvolo
Riddle--a book with nothing written in it, but whose pages answer
questions in a ghostly handwriting--provide the clues that Harry and his
friends need? (Answer to all of the above: Probably.) This puzzle could
be solved in a drab and routine movie with characters wandering down
old stone corridors, but one of the pleasures of Chris Columbus'
direction of "Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets" is how visually
alive it is. This is a movie that answers any objection to computer
animation with glorious or creepy sights that blend convincingly with
the action. Hogwarts itself seems to have grown since the first movie,
from a largish sort of country house into a thing of spires and turrets,
vast rooms and endlessly convoluted passageways, lecture halls and
science labs, with as much hidden below the ground as visible above it.
Even the Quiddich game is held in a larger stadium (maybe rich alumni
were generous?). There are times, indeed, when the scope of Hogwarts
seems to approach that of Gormenghast, the limitless edifice in the
trilogy by Mervyn Peake that was perhaps one of Rowling's inspirations.

The
production designer is Stuart Craig, returning from "Harry Potter and
the Sorcerer's Stone." He has created (there is no other way to put it) a
world here, a fully realized world with all the details crowded in, so
that even the corners of the screen are intriguing. This is one of the
rare recent movies you could happily watch with the sound turned off,
just for the joy of his sets, the costumes by Judianna Makovsky and
Lindy Hemming, and the visual effects (the Quiddich match seems even
more three-dimensional, the characters swooping across the vast field,
as Harry finds himself seriously threatened by the odious Malfoy).

There are three new characters this time, one delightful, one conceited, one malevolent. Professor Sprout (Miriam Margolyes)
is on the biology faculty, and teaches a class on the peculiar
properties of the mandrake plant, made all the most amusing by students
of John Donne who are familiar with the additional symbolism of the
mandrake only hinted at in class. The more you know about mandrakes, the
funnier Sprout's class is.

She is the delightful addition. The conceited new faculty member, deliciously cast, is Gilderoy Lockhart (Kenneth Branagh),
author of the autobiography Magical Me, who thinks of himself as a
consummate magician but whose spell to heal Harry's broken arm has
unfortunate results. And then there is Lucius Malfoy (Jason Isaacs), father of the supercilious Draco, who skulks about as if he should be hated just on general principles.

These
characters and plot elements draw together in late action sequences of
genuine power, which may be too intense for younger viewers. There is a
most alarming confrontation with spiders and a scary late duel with a
dragon, and these are handled not as jolly family movie episodes, but
with the excitement of a mainstream thriller. While I am usually in
despair when a movie abandons its plot for a third act given over
entirely to action, I have no problem with the way "Harry Potter and the
Chamber of Secrets" ends, because it has been pointing toward this
ending, hinting about it, preparing us for it, all the way through. What
a glorious movie.

Lol. I love how one minute you're criticizing that and then the next you're saying they "return to Hogwarts to continue not really learning much, like always." For God's sake, nothing will please you. Oh, and it's called law of conservation of detail, moron. You ever heard of it?

However, Fawkes's tears' healing powers were revealed earlier, and reappear later on in the series.

And the Harry Potter books are not boring. And J.K. Rowling probably wanted to announce Dumbledore being gay in the book series, but her editor wouldn't let her. Do you have any idea how homophobic children's TV shows and books are? When have you ever seen an openly gay character in a children's TV show, movie, or book? Ever?

And J.K. Rowling had every right to sue that man fo r publishing an unofficial book of Harry Potter facts. And she was a poor woman living on welfare before she started writing.

If I had to deal with the stuff he does, I'd get fed up with it and become an asshole, too.