The news that a sequel was coming filled me with weariness and wariness. Columbus and Kloves had brought Harry Potter to the screen, but a ten year-old with a video camera and the action figures would have been more entertaining.
Yet, with Chamber of Secrets, Columbus and Kloves reach the dizzying heights of acceptable mediocrity.
Chamber of Secrets is, like Philosopher's Stone, largely a point-by-point adaptation of the book. However, Columbus and Kloves have managed to slightly liven up their approach this time around. While the two of them continue to take the approach of transcribing JK Rowling's dialogue, truncating it as necessary and having the actors read it, the scenes that wouldn't translate too well from page to screen are amplified as needed.
Harry's first meeting with Dobby is reasonably effective and the shots of Harry looking over moving photographs of his friends from Hogwarts are a nice reminder of how much he found in the first film. There's a reasonable sense of enthusiasm when the Weasley brothers break Harry out of the Dursley home. The idea of Uncle Vernon trying to drag Harry back into the house by his ankles is cute. The trip to Hogwarts by flying car is, on paper, a straightforward flight. This is interesting to read and would be boring to watch. Thankfully, Columbus and Kloves add a bit the car almost getting hit by the Hogwarts Express and Harry falling out of the car. It all works much better on film.
Hogwarts still looks like a normal castle, but Columbus' direction adds some much needed shadow and darkness and makes it look a little more foreboding and unknowable instead of a section of Disney World. There's a very effective alternate writing of our introduction to the Mudblood term, where Hermione already knows what it means and explains it to Harry, saving us the prolonged dialogue which wouldn't translate too well to a movie. Likewise, McGonagall explaining the myth of the Chamber of Secrets is far more effective than having a less familiar professor deliver the history lesson. Unlike the previous film, there's a strong amount of tension and danger created by the exposition, something which was hopelessly absent in the first movie.
Columbus and Kloves manage to move us reasonably well from scene to scene, and there's only a minimal sense that we're just seeing random scenes adapted from the books until the next visual effects sequence. And the visuals in this film are glorious. In the first movie, the Quidditch match was looked like camcorder footage of someone playing the video game, while in this movie, the focus is strictly on Harry's efforts as the Seeker and it's a far more riveting event. The film also has much more in terms of striking images than the first movie; the shots of Harry falling into Tom Riddle's diary and being expelled look brilliantly iconic. Also absolutely magnificent are the spiders in the Forbidden Forest, which, matched with Rupert Grint's acting, wring every drop of terror and discomfort from the creatures. And Harry's battle with the Basilisk at the climax is powerfully realized.
The best quality of Chamber of Secrets is that it's efficient. It adheres very strictly to the material, adapts the scenes as necessary to work better on film, and is reasonably watchable and entertaining. And yet, it's still a decidedly superficial film, focused on the surface level thrills. There is no cinematic inspiration here; giant spiders and giant snakes are perfectly common elements of fantasy movies.
What made the book more than just another fantasy adventure with giant spiders and giant snakes was the story of Harry confronting his potential legacy as the descendant of an extremely nasty bloodline. The book really made a meal out of the idea that a good portion of the students suspected Harry of being behind the attacks. The movie, however, barely spares a moment for Harry's being considered the top suspect for the attacks.
The sense of Harry being apart from others, considered separate and even notorious, is set aside by the movie in favour of plowing ahead through Rowling's plotlines. While the movie is certainly more watchable than the first installment, it accomplishes no increased psychological depth and no deeper meaning. It's simply a well-paced, professional piece of children's fantasy.
Also, while Columbus and Kloves have turned up the intensity and volume of their work, they still have trouble with visual adaptation. Harry entering his bedroom at the Dursleys to find an unfamiliar and alien creature should be a jolting shock. Instead, the editing and camerawork present Dobby's appearance as nothing more than a mild surprise. Harry helping Professor Lockhart answer his fanmail should be Harry being blanketed in Lockhart's triteness while executing a tedious task, but Columbus and Kloves depict as Lockhart having a pleasant conversation with him. Harry getting his arm broken by a rogue bludger should be a violent, physical assault, but the camera angles make it little more than a tennis ball glancing off the glancing off his forearm.
In the book, Harry failed to stop Lockhart from curing his broken arm by removing the bones because he was dazed and delirous, while in the film, Harry is perfectly lucid and doesn't stop Lockhart for no apparent reason. The seemingly affable Tom Riddle's exposure as Lord Voldemort is marvellously performed by Christian Coulson but shot as an actor delivering lines, with the camerawork never taking advantage or heightening the sense of how this pleasant student is revealed as the most deadly wizard alive. And Harry being stabbed by a Basilisk fang should be shockingly violent and deadly, but instead we only realize Harry's been stabbed because Harry pulls the fang from his arm and Riddle explains it to us.
While it's not as irritating as before, Columbus and Kloves still see movies as actors delivering dialogue to each other and continually adapt the book to this format, with no thought to physicality, three-dimensional space or visceral reaction. Columbus simply has no talent for creating a tactile environment in which the characters interact. It's a serious problem for a fantasy movie rendering an unfamiliar world.
Perhaps the worst excesses of Columbus and Kloves appear in the overlong, never-ending finale to the film. All the modest improvements the director and writer demonstrated earlier seem to evapourate. Lengthy explanation and exposition between Harry and a bored Richard Harris, who is only present to collect a paycheque and appease his granddaughter. Lengthy explanation and exposition between Harry and Lucius Malfoy. And then an extended congratulations and expression of gratitude from Dobby. And Hagrid returning. And everyone applauding his return and his words of gratitude to Harry despite the fact that given the size of the room, it's unlikely that anyone not in the immediate vicinity could have heard Hagrid speaking. And everyone headlining the credits gets their own shot of applauding! Shot after shot of people clapping, right thorugh to the credits! It hits a level of mawkish sentimentality has no business in Harry Potter's world.
The great strength of Rowling's writing, in my mind, is her ability to depict Harry's relationships without regularly having the characters describe it and act it out for that purpose alone. Rowling doesn't make her characters gush about their caring for each other in order for us to know about it; their actions during the course of the story make it perfectly plain.
Columbus and Kloves, however, feel the need to have everyone applaud Hagrid's return in a manner that drags the audience into feeling happy. It feels sickening.
Philosopher's Stone, while faithful, was unimaginative and uninspired. So is Chamber of Secrets, but it has the virtue of being efficient, and that alone in comparison to the first film makes it seem a near masterpiece.
