Screened at Cinepolis • ??? Viewing
Yooooo, wtf? Slytherin is an allegory for a white supremacist group? Bro, there goes my entire childhood…
In hindsight, Chamber of Secrets is slightly similar to its predecessor in terms of its story beats. There’s another chamber that Harry Potter must discover in which Voldemort is planning his escape in. Harry also lies to Dumbledore again about his suspicions that nobody else has, is saved by a magical entity in the forbidden forest and faces this mysterious chamber with his friends until he is once again separated from them during its resolution. There’s even a quidditch scene where somebody tampers with the game yet Harry still manages to catch the golden snitch. Howbeit, I think there’s a lot more social comparisons to be made between reality and the Wizarding World than what Sorcerer’s Stone had to offer. Gilderoy Lockhart is an amusing take on celebrity phoniness and foolish fandom praise. Dobby’s character and storyline is a god-tier addition to the series and creates a, however, pretty dark parallel to history’s background with indentured servitude.
Chamber of Secrets furthermore flourishes though because, even though this one does involve another chamber, the initial build-up to the meaning behind its existence has an intimate background to our main characters, developing more relevance to the actual story between Potter and Voldemort than what Philosopher’s Stone attempted to do. The paralleling between Potter and Riddle exceptionally defeats the wits of simply retrieving a powerful yet meaningless magic stone — howbeit, Philosopher’s Stone does use these supposedly pointless circumstances to provoke Harry into accepting the death of his parents, which is a theme I respected in that first entry. Although, the second half of Chamber of Secrets does admittedly tumble through too many needless loops before it actually gets to its climax — the pacing obviously suffers greatly from this which Sorcerer’s Stone had nailed down with a maturer bite. On the brighter side, the acting has slightly improved in Year 2 but the plot is as expedient, if not, more expedient than Year 1, registering itself with plenty of plot-holes to be served and expositional extravaganzas to be witchcrafted.
All in all, in spite of its many drawbacks, this continuing venture in the saga is, even so, decent, again! The first two Harry Potter flicks haven’t aged the best in my opinion but they’re still at least ripe in my book! Dumbledore knows though how much more thrilled I am to revisit specifically the next entry in this franchise…
Verdict: B-
“Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets” is now playing in select theaters.
Burning the Celluloid 
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