SOMETHING EVIL HAS RETURNED TO HOGWARTS!

Summer holidays are over and it’s time to go back to Hogwarts where the apprentice wizards find out that the Chamber of Secrets threatens to destroy the school.

This dark sequel to Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone came a year later and the two movies are similar. Boastful professor Gilderoy Lockhart joins the faculty; Kenneth Branagh makes this character’s insecurity a fun ingredient. The kids do their parts well, even if young Rupert Grint is allowed to run wild with his constant mugging.

Unfortunately, the film is too long; knowing when enough is enough would become a familiar challenge throughout the series. 

2002-U.S. 161 min. Color. Widescreen. Directed by Chris Columbus. Screenplay: Steve Kloves. Novel: J.K. Rowling. Cast: Daniel Radcliffe (Harry Potter), Rupert Grint (Ron Weasley), Emma Watson (Hermione Granger), Kenneth Branagh, John Cleese, Robbie Coltrane, Richard Harris, Jason Isaacs, Alan Rickman, Maggie Smith, Warwick Davis, Richard Griffiths, Fiona Shaw, Julie Walters, Tom Felton. Voices of Toby Jones, Julian Glover. 

Trivia: Alan Cumming and Rupert Everett were considered for the part of Lockhart. Followed by Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (2004).