Harry Potter And The Chamber Of Secrets

Shhh! Don’t tell anybody about these previews. THE LORD OF THE RINGS: THE TWO TOWERS–I know I’ve said a lot about these movies already, but I’ll say it again. I CAN’T WAIT FOR THIS MOVIE!! With every preview it just looks better and better. We all know that Gandalf returns, but everytime he shows up on screen I feel a sense of relief. It’s actually quite strange.

I’ll shut up about it.

For now…

THE WILD THORNBERRYS MOVIE–Ya know, I really wasn’t all that into The Rugrats (although I applaud their recent decision to let them grow up) and this looks a lot like them. But it does look like it may actually be a semi-intelligent alternative for the little kiddies. I probably won’t see it, but I won’t be too offended if I see a bunch of kids in line for it.

JUNGLE BOOK 2–Hmmm. Somehow I knew it was coming, but I was really hoping that it wouldn’t be. This is one of my favorite Disney films and now they’re going to ruin it by making a sequel. Ya know? When is the Snow White sequel coming out? Or the Pinocchio sequel? Or The Black Cauldron 2: Electric Boogaloo?

But they did one good thing. As soon as I saw Baloo on the screen I thought, they better have gotten John Goodman to play him. He’s the only man alive who could fill Phil Harris’ shoes.

Because of my affection for this movie I might see the sequel on video, but I won’t go see it in the theatre unless I hear some absolutely GLOWING reviews…which I doubt very much will happen.

KANGAROO JACK–Poor Jerry O’Connell. He comes from one of the greatest movies ever made about a group of kids going to see a dead body and ends up in pieces of shit like this.

He and Anthony Anderson (one of Jim Carrey’s sons in Me, Myself And Irene) are childhood buddies who end up chasing a kangaroo who has a shirt on with money in the pocket.

And the kangaroo raps.

I can’t go on. I just can’t. I am scared to death for the Hollywood Mythos right now.

Oh, Estella Warren and Christopher Walken are also in it. Too bad for them.

JOHNNY ENGLISH–Poor Rowan Atkinson. He starts off in one of the greatest BBC comedies ever made (Black Adder, not Mr. Bean–although I like that one at times, too) and ends up in pieces of shit like this.

Hmmm. Seems to be a lot of that going around.

This one is a spoof of James Bond with Rowan, of course, in the lead. He’s dragging John Malkovich and Natalie Imbruglia (!) down with him this time.

Should be a shit!

TWO WEEKS NOTICE–Poor Hugh Grant.

Ok, no more of that. This looks pretty bad, though. He and Sandra Bullock (who hasn’t done a good movie since Speed except for maybe A Time To Kill…and that was no fault of hers) are an asshole boss and super-assistant who, when she’s finally had enough and puts in the titular time period, realize that they can’t live without each other.

Shit. Let’s move on.

Now, for the badly titled second installment of the Harry Potter series. (If it’s really a chamber of secrets, would it really be called The Chamber Of Secrets? Wouldn’t everyone just call it a secret chamber? I guess Harry Potter And The Secret Chamber sounded too much like a Hardy Boys mystery. Or a porn.)

This time out Harry (Daniel Radcliffe) and his friends, Ron (Rupert Grint) and Hermione (Emma Watson) are looking for, surprise surprise! The Chamber Of Secrets. It holds the key to the reason for a bunch of students becoming paralyzed. Who’s chamber is it? Does it really exist? Is there a monster there? And is the evil Voldemort behind it all?

Along the way to help/hinder them in finding the clues is Dobby, a computer generated house elf who is trying to save Harry from being killed seemingly by killing him. His only real purpose seems to be to come very close to telling Harry something important and then start beating his head on the wall as self-punishment. Didn’t know house elves were masochists, did you?

There’s also Gilderoy Lockhart, the new (and very vain) Defense from the Dark Arts teacher (Kenneth Branagh). He says that he knows exactly what’s going on, but a lot of the Hogwart’s folks are a little dubious of him. Unless they’re female, of course. Then they absolutely worship the ground he walks on.

Draco Malfoy (Tom Felton) and his father Lucius (Jason Isaacs from The Patriot) figure into this one a bit more because the monster is only getting to “mudbloods.” (They’re the ones who are born of normal, er, Muggle parents.) And, seeing as how the Malfoys are so prejudiced against these folks, they are prime suspects to the Harry gang.

Hagrid (Robbie Coltrane) is here, too, and he is also accused of at least knowing something about the monster and the Chamber. The rest of the Hogwarts elite (Prof. Dumbledore (the late, great Richard Harris), Prof. McGonagall (Maggie Smith) and Prof. Snape (the always awesome Alan Rickman…although he didn’t have a lot to do here)) always think that they almost know exactly what’s going on, but they just can’t make the right connections.

I guess the big question here isn’t who done it, but is it better than the first one? And the answer to that question is, I’m happy to say, a resounding “YES!”

The sense of magic that was lost in the translation from book to screen in the first one is back here. Whereas that one seemed like a bunch of scenes thrown together in a jumble of near plot, this one seems to actually tell us a story. Sure, the plot is still pretty simple, but it’s a freakin’ kids’ movie. I don’t expect Fight Club-like plot twists.

But, yeah, the magic. Everything just seems more magical, for lack of a better word. Even the school itself is more interesting. (And it seems like it looks quite different from the first one, although I don’t remember what it looked back then.) Everything is much darker and more sinister (like the story itself…kids are in danger of getting killed and there’s messages written in blood on the walls). The bad guys seem to be more dangerous and the good guys seem to be in more peril.

The performances keep this dark trend going. Everyone has either stayed just as good or (in the kids’ cases) improved quite a bit. I actually believed that Harry was about to get skewered by a bunch of spiders. (This scene actually made me happy that they cut the spider scene in The Two Towers. We’ve got enough spiders here to keep William Shatner busy for the next ten years.) Although Rupert still seems to be a little too good at disgusted and scared looks. He needs to invest Ron in some new expressions.

One bit of casting that was good, but almost could have been better. Kenneth Branagh was nearly perfect as the selfish Prof. Lockhart, but I couldn’t help wondering if Kevin Kline would have done a better job. He would have chewed that character up, and it’s certainly a scenery chewing character if ever there was one.

If I remember the first one right, this one has a lot more cool action, also. The Quidditch match is A LOT better this time out. One of my viewing buddies said that he almost thought he was watching Star Wars. And the special effects on it looked a lot better. In fact, all of them looked better. You will believe that a car can fly. (That car was a bit too much of a deus ex machina, though. Why did it go into the woods?)

Overall, even with its warts, I liked this movie quite a bit. It ain’t perfect, but it’s still a lot of fun and a damn site better than the first one.

Now, a word about the future of the series. Where can they go from here? Keep in mind, I’ve only read the first two books, so I don’t know exactly where they’re going. I’ll have to see when I get there, but I might be close.

First off, the books are going to get darker as the kids get older. I’ve already heard that. And someone is going to die and J.K. Rowling says it’s going to be “very difficult to write.”

Those are the knowns. This book was already darker than the first and we’re starting to see some themes come up that will have to be developed later on. Hermione and Ron are just too uncomfortable around each other. They’re gonna do it. (Huh-huh. Uh-huh-huh.) Harry is already in puppy love with Hermione, but that’s going to break his heart and maybe even turn him to the dark side for a bit. But not for a whole book. He has to remain the hero. He’ll find Ron’s little sister, Jenny, to be just the right fit.

I also don’t buy this whole, “Voldemort inadvertently transferred some of his power to Harry” bs. I still think that Voldemort is Harry’s father.

Here’s another question: if the books are getting darker and the characters (and audience) more mature, will the later films be rated a little stronger? Maybe get up to a PG-13 by movie 4? Maybe the last one is rated R and Harry cuts off Malfoy’s head while Ron and Hermione get it on back at the dorm?

And what of the role of Prof. Dumbledore? Who will fill the shoes of Richard Harris? That’s the real tough one here. Harris was a force and it’s difficult to think of someone else taking the role. (Although I hear that he really didn’t want it in the first place…his grand-daughter made him take it.)

I heard about an interview where they asked Emma what she would do if she had the magical powers that Hermione does. She said that she would make Richard Harris better.

That was about a week before he died.

The man they called Horse has fallen. Let’s all go into our studies and listen to “MacArthur Park” and remember him as the blue-eyed King Arthur (even if the movie wasn’t all that great). Meanwhile, he’s off drinking gin and tonic with Richard Burton not caring if we remember him or not.