Continuing with a series of books to make a full fledged franchise isn’t the easiest task to uphold, especially considering the said franchise, Harry Potter, had already received vast praise from the general public with the first book, so the pressure was on to make a sequel that furthered the story and characters and up the stakes in a way that would keep audiences engaged for future books. Much like the 1998 book itself, The Chamber of Secrets, which was released in 2002, captures a similar feel to the first movie; with improved effects, better thought-out story and risks, and still contained that unique magical feel, so in many ways, it feels like this would be the perfect next logical step in building a movie franchise. The issue comes from HOW similar the two products are to each other, which becomes quite clear the more the movie keeps going. While still being stuck with his abusive family (for reasons), Harry Potter (played by Daniel Radcliffe) is visited by a house elf named Dobby (voiced by Toby Jones) who warns him not to return to Hogwarts in fear of terrible things happening if he does so. Ignoring the warnings as his life is literally awful without the magical school, Harry, along with his two best friends, Ron and Hermione (played by Rupert Grint and Emma Watson) return to Hogwarts and soon discover the danger that the house elf warned him about; a giant monster is lurking throughout the school and attacking students that are muggle-born (not from a magical family) in the name of Slytherin house. With more and more students dropping by the second and with the threat of Hogwarts being closed for good if this is resolved, the three have to find the hiding place of this monster, find out who released it in the first place, and stop it before it wipes out all wizards this creature deems unworthy, all the while a mysterious spirit named Tom Riddle (played by Christian Coulson) takes an interest in Harry and informs him of when an incident like this occurred years ago and how it ties back to the founders of this very school. The Chamber of Secrets was another smash hit for the franchise, becoming the second highest-grossing film of 2002 and critics praising its darker plot and tone. While things are improved upon from the Philosopher’s Stone, it feels very much like a repeat; hitting the same beats as the previous film, just having a stronger narrative and a much darker tone. It doesn’t repeat to the point of annoyance, but its hard to ignore that nothing feels especially progressed from the first story to this. Though debatable which one is technically better, they both have their own ups and downs that will sway many to prefer one or the other.

The story in many respects is improved upon from the last movie, but also hindered because of it. On the one hand, many things are established and progressed more compared to the first movie, which was mostly just set-up and gave an idea of what the atmosphere of the world would be like. The castle is given a good backstory, the villain is given a stronger presence, some of the characters are given better defining traits, and it does have an obvious threat from beginning to end that needs to be defeated. It’s also a lot darker too; it earns the PG rating with some threatening imagery and gruesome insinuations, taking a simple story with a charming atmosphere and takes it in a darker direction without making it uncharacteristic or bland (which the franchise would heavily suffer from later down the line). This is a credit to writer, Steve Kloves, who is able to truncate the story by J.K. Rowling and was able to mature the content in a way that doesn’t remove the kid-centric tone and magical feel (as the later films would do). However, the obvious repeated formula can’t be ignored. It tries to recreate various recognizable moments from the first movie and even has a very similar story structure to the first; the three are facing a threat in Hogwarts and all three have to travel deep into the depths of the castle and destroy the threat. While the goals and actions taken are different, the direction is a bit too similar, maybe not helped out by the fact that Chris Columbus, returns to direct the sequel (he did a decent job the first time around, but maybe didn’t anything new to bring). This story would have worked better for a first movie with a good set-up and better establishment, but because the first movie had no real story progression, the sequel has to make up for it. A book is allowed to be drawn out and have diverging points because that’s how the medium can operate, its allowed to have more time to flesh out stories, mainly the reason why there’s seven books. But a movie at least needs to attempt to condense said points into a flowing narrative without it feeling like padding. The movie is drawn out a lot longer than necessary with scenes and plot points added in for little other reason than filler or to appease the book readers. When it comes to moments focused on the story, they are done well, given the right amount of attention and are engaging for what they are, but the stuff that isn’t needed and slows down the plot are a little annoying (although the mystery aspect is a fault of the original book for dragging out something that isn’t too hard to figure out).

Many of the old characters everyone loves are back with some new additions that help branch out the world in a believable way. The villain played by Christian Coulson is given an actual form and voice where he can be a bit more threatening, some new teachers are added to the mix, played by more recognizable actors like Kenneth Branagh and Miriam Margolyes, and even more of the younger cast is expanded upon like a young ghost girl played by Shirley Henderson which is a nice new addition. The kids have gotten a bit better with age as Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint and Emma Watson are still giving everything they have to engage with the material and to appropriately react and emote when they need to, and for the most part, its not too bad even if it’s still a little awkward, and the adult actors like Alan Rickman, Maggie Smith, Robbie Coltrane and Richard Harris are all still wonderful in their roles. While nothing intensely strong is added to make some of the character’s stronger or more interesting, it does at least take time out of the movie to give some of them more of an identity and establish recognizable issue that many might be able to identify with like racial prejudice or poor upbringings and such. It works not only as a tool to ironing out some interesting world building aspects of this environment (which is something Rowling is usually pretty good at in her work), but it allows these leads to have something else to identify with and work through. It at least attempts to shape out identities and issues that these characters could struggle with, but the issue is that they never amount to anything come the end of the series, and it definitely doesn’t help that they just aren’t well-written characters. Harry acting as a blank slate works within a book and even to his credit, there are aspects around him that could work for the role, but he’s nothing much outside of just a one-note hero figure, which seems to work for fans of the stories and even this franchise in general, so you just have to accept it.

One of the most staggering and impressive aspects of the movie is some of the effects. While the first one had some good make-up and locations,  this one takes it to the next step with some great looking production design by Stuart Craig, sets decorated by Stephanie McMillan, great looking outfits by Lindy Hemming, very impressive make-up and a surprisingly good mix of practical and computer-generated effects, which were handled by several companies like Industrial Light & Magic, Mill Film, the Moving Picture Company (MPC), Cinesite and Framestore CFC, clearly showing how much effort went into making them look as good as they did. While some of the CG isn’t perfect like the flying car, most of the others work quite well. Dobby, though a bit annoying as a character and stuck with not the most appealing design, has some pretty decent effect on him handled by visual effects supervisors Jim Mitchell and Nick Davis (weird as it is to say, he looks like you can touch him, even though nobody would really want too). The actual animatronics used in the film are also worth praising, with puppets used for a majority of the magical creatures and only CG’d over when it couldn’t be filmed otherwise. The monsters are expanded upon, introducing giant spiders, a phoenix and even the main monster has a simple yet threatening design and intimidating voice also helped out by some pretty strong sound design by Randy Thorn who really makes this thing sound ancient, blood-hungry and pretty creepy. The physicality on a lot of the dangerous monsters really helps in adding to the fear factor that a CG creation couldn’t pull off as effectively. Seeing an actual giant spider on-screen through puppetry is something that leaves a much stronger impact that a standard CG spider. It still has the recognizable score by John Williams that will forever be in people’s head, but the rest of the score isn’t that memorable to compensate. It even has a decent humorous edge to it, while nothing hilarious, it has a good balance to the gruesome darkness that levels out the more dramatic parts.

Chamber of Secrets takes the franchise in a better direction than its predecessor but can’t escape it’s unfortunate repeated story. If the plot was more unique like the later films or the first one had this kind of set-up and development, it would have worked better. As it is, it’s still a decently done movie with some good elements that unfortunately can’t shake its bad elements. It still has the great adult actors, it has some very impressive technology and effects, it has an appropriately dark edge and even though it’s a sequel, it was able to provide a very authentic recreation of a beloved book onto the big screen, so it was able to keep the train rolling and let this movie franchise keeping growing. Plenty of Hogwarts to return to with a more threatening atmosphere, the fact that these films hold a large place in book lovers and witch and wizard lovers heart is no secret.

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