Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets - Synopsis

As Harry tries to settle into his 2nd year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, mysterious happenings plunge Harry and his friends into another full on race for the truth. Things start with the usual Misery at the Dursley’s house, this time Harry is rescued by the 3 youngest Weasley Brothers in their dad’s flying car. Harry’s also paid a visit at the Dursley’s by a house elf named Dobby who warns him to stay away from School this year as terrible things await him there. Once he arrives at school it doesn’t take long for the terrible things to start to happen, Harry starts to hear a voice that seems to be coming from within the walls warning him of what’s to come(murder and death). Mudblood(people with one or more Muggle [non magic] parents) students start to be petrified by an unknown Monster that is lurking the grounds and lives in the mysterious Chamber of Secrets. People start to suspect that Harry is responsible for the attacks seeing he appears to be the heir of Slytherin due to being able to speak Parsel-tongue (basically snake language). This sets up many diverging plot lines with Harry and Ron searching for the Chamber with help from Hagrid who is sent to the Prison at Azkaban upon suspicion that he opened the Chamber. Things culminate with Harry battling the Monster in the Chamber itself and learning who opened the Chamber and why. Is year 2 better than year 1 ? Yes without a doubt this movies is overall darker and slightly more humorous and if you can handle it even longer that the 1st installment. I don’t really want to get much more into the plot than this cause A)it will take too long as I’m a HP expert and fanatic and could go on and on and B) I’d much rather spend my time going through the numerous extras on Disc 2.

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets - Picture Quality

Just like Year 1 this is a superb transfer, I would dare say reference quality. I absolutely adore the continuity in cinematography, especially seeing it’s a completely different cinematographer Robert Pratt (Brazil, Batman, Twelve Monkeys) taking over duty. You could literally take any similar scene in year 1 and compare it to a scene in year 2 and couldn’t tell the difference. The film has big budget written all over it with Huge Sets and Giant Camera sweeps all over that place. The world of Harry Potter really comes alive in a real and believable way, which is totally spectacular to watch.

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets - Audio

I viewed the film in Dolby Digital 5.1 and found it to be pretty darn good in most regards. The major action scenes really took full advantage of the 5.1 range, with scenes like the Whomping Willow attack and the lead up to/actual Battle with the Basilisk standing out most to me. Other times it seems like the movie was very front heavy with little use of the rear channels other than in the action packed scenes. I found the score to be very well mixed in on the other hand with little muddyness of the score that I find in most other movies nowadays. The score really stands out much like in the previous movie and it’s a John Williams score so you really don’t want to miss a single note.

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets - Extras

Now on to the massive amount of supplemental features. I have to say thanks to Warner Home Video for responding to the criticism of the previous HP1 DVD release and making the Menu simple to use and taking out the games and hoops needed to jump through. On the HP 1 DVD you had to rummage through all sort of games and such just to see the much beloved additional/extended scenes, this time they got it right, when Disc 2 loads up the “Additional Scenes” is the 1st selection to chose, no jerking around. The additional scenes don’t really add much to the film other that length, the one exception being the scene inside the store Harry transports to using Floo Powder involving the Malfoy clan engaging in some unscrupulous activity selling items of questionable dark magic use. The “interview with author J.K. Rowling and screenwriter Steve Kloves” is simply wonderful they really shed lots of light on the way Harry Potter is transferred onto screen. J K adds lots to the mix talking some serious Potter talk discussing some of the ways she uses characters and about her opinions on the film adaptations so far. There’s “Gilderoy Lockhart's Classroom” that’s a playful and funny look at some of Lockhart’s “Books”, “Certificates” and “Photo Album Pictures”; all are narrated and really show off the absurdity of the character. The “interviews with Students, Professors and More” is essentially a quick interview clip cut together with a movie clip to illustrate one of the characters main attributes. There’s a clip with every character that speaks in the movie more or less, my favorite being the interview with Jason Isaacs who really shows his love for his character of Lucius Malfoy. There are a few activities to play around with like “Forbidden Forest”, “Tour Diagon Alley”, “Colin’s Darkroom” and “The Chamber Challenge” they were mildly amusing but not for me, the kiddies will dig them I’m sure and that’s what they’re there for right? There also a DVD-ROM segment on the 2nd Disc but I don’t have a player on my comp so here’s the summery of what’s available; “15 special features including: The One VoiceDVD technology will allow users to navigate through the DVD-ROM features and access set top features using only their voices; an animated, interactive Hogwarts timeline; a slider puzzle challenge; printable magic trading cards; jigsaw puzzles, matching challenges, downloadable screensavers and more”.

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets - Overall

As a Film CoS out does the 1st HP film by quite a bit both Story wise and in the Look & Feel department. This is due to 2 reasons A) CoS deals with concepts and characters that are already established in our minds and less explaining is needed that essentially bogs things down and B) the Film makers seem to be more confident in the HP world now and they are taking some chances with plot lines and by going darker in tone and it really pays off.

As a DVD, you don’t get much better of an overall presentation and product to back it up than here. With more features than the last installment and a useable menu it’s not just Magic Folk who should be picking this one up all Muggles should get to their nearest DVD store as soon as possible.

Mark Lerch