Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets [PG]

The boy wizard is back at school and very happy to be so. But strange things are happening at Hogwarts. Students are under attack and the teachers fear terrible events of the past are repeating themselves.

Seeing as I did the first movie last night, we may as well continue on with the theme here and go chronologically through them all. Chamber of Secrets is the second movie in the Harry Potter series.

Summer is almost over and Harry cannot wait to go back to the Hogwarts castle and see all his friends. But shortly before going back, a house elf named Dobby appears in Harry's bedroom and begs him not to return to school.

"Harry Potter must not go back to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry this year. There is a plot. A plot to make most terrible things happen."

Not heeding Dobby's warning, Harry returns to school, only to find that someone is hell-bent on his not being there. Then strange and sinister things start to happen. Students are being attacked. The teachers are worried that terrible events of the past are repeating themselves. Being the heroic trio that they are, Harry, Ron and Hermione begin to dig deeper into the mystery of the hidden chamber within the castle, known as the Chamber of Secrets. But things start to get a little unnerving and even dangerous when they begin to uncover more than they expected.

Chamber of Secrets was very different in comparison to the first film, The Philosopher's Stone. The central characters are all a year older and you really notice it, especially with Dan and Rupert's voices breaking. There is much more confidence in all three of them and there is a much stronger and more obvious comraderee between them, which was only beginning to blossom in the first film. You notice too that they are all very proactive in this movie whereas in the first one, they were all reactive.

The second film is also much funnier than the first, mainly in terms of script. As the story calls for more darker and dangerous situations for the heroes to find themselves in, simple lines were added into the script to make the film a little lighter and more for the family. One great exampe of this is the scene where Harry and Ron are following a trail of spiders in the hopes to find some truth as to the sinister happenings of the castle. Ron, having a phobia of spiders says:

"Why spiders? Why couldn't it be 'follow the butterflies'?"

Now with his voice constantly going up and down, it made these little lines of panic very funny.

All our favourite actors are back reprising their roles and there are a few new faces as well. We welcome:

Mark Willians as Arthur Weasley.

Kenneth Branagh as Gilderoy Lockhart.

Jason Isaacs as Lucius Malfoy.

Mirian Margoyles as Professor Sprout.

Shirley Henderson as Moaning Mytle.

Bonnie Wright as Ginny Weasley.

Toby Jones as Dobby the house elf.

Gemma Jones as Madame Pomfrey.

Christian Coulsen as Tom Riddle.

With more action, suspense, and humour than the first movie, Chamber of Secrets is a wonderful family film that will have you crying, laughing, screaming and everything in between. A must-see movie!

"Can we panic now?"