#revisting

the chamber of secrets holds a very special place in my heart. growing up, before ever all the films and books came out, this was my favourite movie in the series. this was purely because little isobel was a pussy-ass bitch and thought this was the scariest film. though i was very, very easily spooked as a child, i still loved a good scare. i fucking know; the film ain’t scary. you’re underestimating how much of a wimp i was. please, do not @ me.

as per the standard, i’m certain you know the plot of the chamber of secrets, but i’m going to throw it down for the brainlets amongst you. at the very least, it will give you a little refresher as to what’s going down. 

following the events of the philosopher's stone, harry returns to hogwarts for his second year of wizarding education, despite being warned against it by a mysterious elf. things begin to go awry almost instantly, as a deadly rumour about a chamber of secrets arises to terrorise the students of hogwarts. it’s truth may even go so far as to threaten the morality of harry and his friends. 

warner brothers retained christopher columbus as director for this one, although only gave him 100 million u.s. fat ones to work with. for me, i think that shows a little here, although we’ll get into the exact reasons why later. 

before we go any further, i just want to reiterate something i said in my last installment. there is nothing wrong with liking something purely for nostalgic reasons. harry potter was such a massive part of my childhood that i could never bring myself to actively dislike it. as kids, we didn’t really look at films objectively. either we liked them or we didn’t, simple as. all i am attempting to with this series is look at the harry potter franchise as a set of movies and judge them based on what they are. more importantly, i’d like to examine the progression of the series and ask what turned it into a soulless, money-making machine. 

with that out of the way, here is a list of some of my many thoughts when watching this film!

dudley really was that bitch . . .

i never really thought much about dudley before. at least not until part five, when he takes up a little more screen time. but like, damn. dudley was a little pampered bitch in this one. he’s like a little baby incel! 

like , damn those voice changes . . .

octave drop was strong in this one.  

harry really is still that bitch . . . 

for fucks sake, harry! you ruined the punchline of the goddamn japanese golfer joke!

vernon should have died . . . 

i have a mini heart attack every single time i slip on a stair. how is vernon going to full on fall out of a window and not even come out with a scratch. 

why is there a prison setting on the wholesome family clock ? ? ?

if you’ve forgotten, in the weasley household there sits a sort of a clock with a hand representative of each member of the family, lil picture and all. in between school and home sits the very happy setting of prison. my question is, how many times do members of your home have to go to prison before you have to have that as a setting on you family clock. someone might want to run a few background checks on that one. 

mr weasley was fair sound in this one . . .

he's not like other dads. he's a cool dad.

what exactly was ron and harry's plan when they took the fucking car ? ? ?

dumb move. as far as i know, there is no hogwarts car park. 

i don't know if i'm really down with this new wizarding battle bots . . .

aren’t there health and safety precautions in this school that would prevent teachers from using students as human beyblades?

some of the line delivery is still a little shaky . . .

it is clear by this point the radcliffe, grint and watson were all beginning to become more comfortable in their roles. however, this doesn’t prevent some of the line delivery from being a little off. though set in a fictional world, there is still supposed to be an air of realism to it. some lines are given as though they’re part of a theatre production, somewhat exaggerated, cartoonish even, and loud. 

wizard plumbers ? ? ?

so, like, if wizards have plumbing, there be wizard plumbers?

why didn't myrtle say anything to begin with ? ? ?

myrtle must have known, to a degree, what harry, ron and hermoine were up to, so why did she have to wait until the very last minute to tell the lads how she died? i know she was never asked, but it seems like she could have cleared this whole thing up very quickly if she had just said something.

gilderoy really was a little bitch . . . 

what did he think harry and ron were actually going to do? just because two twelve year olds are holding their wands at you, doesn’t me you cant cast your little spell. by default he should be a lot stronger than both of them combined. there is no reason why he should have gone with them.

why did the lads need to bring gilderoy ? ? ?

carrying on from the last point, why did harry and ron even feel the need to bring gilderoy with them? they knew he wasn’t going to offer them any help and was more than likely going to be a hindrance to them. for ron, his top priority should have been getting his sister back. why would he want to bring gilderoy along them, especially when he knew he was utterly useless? and in the end, he didn’t even play a massive role when they got into the chamber anyway. there were are a million and one reasons why the ceiling might have caved in; gilderoy did not need to be there for that to happen. 

i don't really like some of the shots . . . 

there are two point of view shots once we actually get into the chamber that i really don’t like to much. they’re both done in shaky cam, last only a few seconds and are really detached from the rest of the film. they just don’t feel right in combination with the rest of the film’s shots. 

fairly convenient about the old rocks . . .

lucky they didn’t come down on someone’s head and kill a bitch, and fall perfectly as so ron and harry can still see one another. it also forms a thin enough wall as so ron can easily shift them to make some space to get through. 

ginny must be a ridiculously strong witch . . . 

i never really understood tom riddle’s whole thing about how as ginny grows weaker, i grow stronger. ginny is eleven, riddle is voldemort. why is her strength enough to revive him. must be one strong ass witch.

harry should have died . . . 

this snake dumb as fuck that he can’t kill harry. even if the basilisk can’t kill harry itself, he got one of its big as fuck teeth stuck in his arm, before proceeding to pull it out. that would have done major damage to some arteries and he should have died of blood loss. and that’s not even touching the whole poison thing. 

why did the basilisk die from one stab wound . . .

i know it was a stab to the brain, but it’s a mythical creature! shouldn’t it have a thick, strong skull or some shit? how is it just gonna die like that?

fawks is a strong ass bird . . .

fawks must be really, really hench if he can fly harry, ron, ginny and gilderoy out of the chamber, all at once. also, ron, harry and ginny must all have really good upper body strength that they’re able to hang on for that long. 

how you gonna go and cancel exams like that ? ? ?

from what i can remember, the wizarding education system is exactly the same as the english education system, meaning there should be the equivalent of state exams about to go down. how is dumbledoor going to go and cancel those? or do those students not deserve a school treat.

in rewatching this film, i was genuinely shocked by what little impact it had on me. i had felt so nostalgic watching the philosopher's stone and i was waiting to feel the same, perhaps even more so, about this one. but i just didn’t. funnily enough, i don’t think this one even ages that well. the rush to get this one out shows. production isn’t as good and the cgi really isn’t either. as i mentioned previously, the smaller budget plays a huge part in this, even though it was only cut by a small fraction.

if you visit the rotten tomatoes page for this film, you might not that the website proclaims it to be “certified fresh”. however, the reviews are actually quite lacklustre, particularly those coming from the audience. rotten tomatoes’ top critic, micheal agger, harshly opens his review with two down, presumably five to go, and already the franchise is entering dangerous territory: if you aren't one of the many who know their harry potter chapter and verse, prepare for a nap. not all reviews are so blatantly negative. more commonly you see an almost universal meh. wall street journal writer, joe morgenstern, writes this new harry potter has its flaws, but it's better, as well as darker, than the first. meanwhile, audience reviewer, chris weber, writes while not a terrible movie, this one is probably my least favorite and the most forgettable. it's more faithful than the previous film, but that's not entirely a good thing, as this one really drags, and, at this point, it's not quite necessary yet since the books didn't start getting really detailed, ambitious, and overblown until part 4. the general response to this film is bland and pointedly marked with indifference. seeing as the harry potter series is regularly praised as a collective, i find this response particularly interesting.

this might seem a little bit strange to say, and even as i am writing i am second guessing myself, but there is a certain degree of instability to the storyline. j. k. rowling was propelled into stardom following the success of the philosopher’s stone. its something that she probably never anticipated nor prepared for and i think this shows a little bit in her storyline. the chamber of secrets is clearly not a carbon copy of its predecessor, particularly through the first and second act. however, it bothers me a little that the climax of both stories involve harry facing a weakened voldemort in a chamber below the school. of course the the tone is different in this one; you truly get a sense that harry’s morality and the threat of death is far more real. this really isn’t a big issue, it is simply just me being a little bit nit picky. however, i can’t help but feel that this maybe highlights a sort insecurity of rowling’s with this story. it seems a little like she was trying to stick to what she already knew audiences enjoyed. i’m probably reading far too much into this; it’s just something i thought might be interesting to note. 

all in all, i was disappointed by what i found in my return to this film. it wasn’t really nostalgic at all, even despite it being one of my favourite films in my childhood. that’s why it pains me so much to only give it a four out of ten. it isn’t so much that it’s an awful film as much as it is disappointing. not neccessarily in regards to execution, but in regards to my own standards. i can completely see why someone would truly get enjoyment out of rewatching this film but, like i said previously, i don’t really know how much someone would get out of it if they didn’t watch it in their childhood. it’s the kind of film you would watch only if you were doing a harry potter marathon, not because you selected it individually.