Volume 3, No. 4 November 22, 2002
Not so wild about ‘Harry’ A Review By Glen Osterberger It is almost impossible not to have heard of Harry Potter. From the best-selling books by J.K. Rowling that started it all to toys and the two movies — first "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone" and now "Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets," the latest faithful movie retelling — Harry Potter is everywhere these days. I read the four books in the series last summer and found them to be a delight. The books are not great literary masterpieces, but they brought back memories of the enchantment I felt as a child reading "The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe," "Alice in Wonderland" and other classics. "Chamber of Secrets" is, however, the weakest of the books in my mind and this transfers to film all too well. In addition, sequences (chiefly of the character-building variety) that work well on the written page do not always fare as well in a movie. "Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets" opens with a now 12-year-old Harry (Daniel Radcliffe) joining his friends, Hermione (Emma Watson) and Ron (Rupert Grint), and his nemesis, Draco (Tom Felton), as they begin their sophomore year at Hogwarts School for Witchcraft and Wizardry. Most of the old professors and administrators are back, including headmaster Albus Dumbledore (the late Richard Harris in his final role), the strict Professor McGonagall (Maggie Smith) and the dark, unwelcoming Professor Snape (Alan Rickman). There’s also a newcomer — the charismatic, self-absorbed and pompous Gilderoy Lockhart (Kenneth Branagh), who is more concerned with answering fan mail than teaching defense against the dark arts. As always, the kindly giant named Hagrid (Robbie Coltrane) is around to lend a hand. Hogwarts is in another world within our own. Beyond the ordinary realm of the Muggles, those people who can’t do magic, is a land filled with sorcery, giants and all those things from fairy tales. But all is not well at Hogwarts. A dark plot is brewing, with someone planning to break into the legendary "Chamber of Secrets" and unleash a monster that can petrify or kill with a look. It’s up to Harry and his two friends to uncover the individual behind the plot and foil him or her before Hogwarts is closed. One problem with this film is that the initial encounter with the story’s vivid characters and whimsical parallel universe is missing. In its place comes frantic activity. Characterization takes a back seat to action, and "magic" serves as the escape hatch: Whenever Harry and his sidekicks stumble into danger, a flying car or charmed phoenix materializes to save the moment. So, in using too much of off-hand magic, the film has lost some of its own. What really charmed the audience in the first is simply lacking. Not to say it is a bad film: It has just lost some of the charm. The film holds true to most of the book’s intentions, though it does have to trim things at times (even though the film is more than two-and-a-half hours long). It also loses many of the subtleties of the book, but is still a good film. The second film may be a little darker than the first, but the two pictures mesh perfectly — not surprising, considering that many of the same people were responsible for both. Creatively, the movie has its flaws, but those will be ignored in the box office tidal wave that will leave the younger audience wanting more. It will be interesting to see where the series goes from here, with director Chris Columbus leaving and the next book being too long, and perhaps too dark, for the kind of direct book-to-film transfer that marked the first. One can only hope the result will be as good as, if not better than, its predecessors.
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