This review is based on the Blu-Ray version of the film.
The Harry Potter series is the greatest selling children's book series ever. The 7th and final book in the series alone sold 12 million copies in the US in its first printing. The first book alone has been translated into over 65 languages, including Welsh, Latin and Ancient Greek. The success of the books transformed author J.K. Rowling from a single mother living on welfare into one of the world's richest people. And it has reignited the joy of reading into an entire generation of children.
However, J.K. Rowling never meant for the series to be a children's series, but rather to be a story set place at a magical school involving children. The Sorcerer's Stone is probably the lightest of all the books, and is reflected as such in the movie, but even still, there is that feeling throughout that something dark is looming on the horizon. The story gets darker throughout the books, until we see our first death in book four (sorry to spoil anything). As all of this evil surrounds our main characters, they still have to deal with the challenges of growing up, everything from making friends to dating and serious relationships.
The Chamber of Secrets starts just a few weeks after the end of The Sorcerer's Stone. At least, that is what they have us trying to believe. The film was not started until after it was clear that The Sorcerer's Stone was going to do well at the box office, and the child actors aged quite a bit during that time. This age difference lead to numerous jokes over whether the actors were going to be in their 20s still doing Potter films. There is an extremely funny skit on Saturday Night Live about this, and the British show Comic Relief made a short that is outrageously hilarious. This being said, I felt that critics were a bit tough on them about this. The kids were cast for the first movie, some, such as Emma Watson, who plays Hermione, was only 9. So, by the time that filming began on the second movie, the kids were actually the same age as the characters they portrayed, and with Warner Bros turning out a new Potter movie roughly every 12-18 months, the actors end up growing quite well with the character they portray. Granted, by the time they finish the 7th movie, most of the actors will be 19 and 20 years old, but a 19 year-old portraying a 17 year-old is not that big of a stretch.
However, I did have one small problem with the film - it is directed pretty much the same as the first one is. While it is kind of cute to have 10 year-olds doing reaction shots and goofy acting, it is annoying on 12 year-olds. The actors have all grown about a foot, and their voices have changed between the first and second movies, and the movie deals with a slightly more mature subject matter. Unfortunately, the director still treats the now-preteen actors as if they are still little kids, and its quite annoying at times. Ironically, some of the best scenes, that actually showed the character's ages, and were some of the best shot sequences, were cut out or cut short. The disc has 19 of these deleted scenes on it, which really help drive the film. Sadly, the disc does not offer us the extended version of the movie, which has been seen on ABC and ABCFamily, so instead, we are left with this annoying, rushed travesty of a film. While I admire the filmmakers for trying to remain true to the book, you just have too much going on in too short of a period of time, and it does not really work for this dark of a movie.
There were two excellent casting choices made in this movie, and that was the roles of Lucious Malfoy and Tom Riddle. Both actors steal the scenes, are comfortable in front of a camera, and really seem to have a grasp on the characters they are portraying. It is sad that both are just supporting characters, and have less than five minutes of screen time each. The worst casting choice was for the new Defense Against The Dark Arts teacher, Gildroy Lockhart, where the only thing in common with the book is that he is full of himself. The book gives an impression of someone who is likable and very handsome, who tells little white lies about his true accomplishments and abilities. The movie gives us a character who has adult acne, looks like he is well into his 50s, and does not have a single likable characteristic. I winch, and will sometimes fast-forward through any scene this guy is in, he is that bad of a casting choice.
So not that I have blabbered on for ages, maybe you would actually like to know a bit about the movie. As I stated earlier, this movie starts roughly a month after the end of the previous film, with Harry Potter spending his summer holidays at home, and the only thing different is that he now has his own room. The reason why is never stated in the movies, you will have to read the first book for that. A house-elf visits Harry one evening, warning him not to return to school, as there is a plan to make bad things happen. A few days later, his friends, Ron, George, and Fred Weasly drive a flying car to his house, rescue him and takes him to their house for the remainder of the summer. Sadly, this scene is way shorter than it should be, as some of my favorite scenes from the book happen while he is at their house, including the formation of the relationship between Ginny Weasley and the other characters, which is sadly reduced to about 10 seconds in the movie with Ginny coming down the staircase, seeing Harry, running away, and Ron saying that she has been talking about him all summer. That is it for this relationship, and other than Ginny being in a couple of reaction shots here and there, we do not see or hear from her again until the end of the movie, when Harry heroically storms off to save her, and people who never have read the books will just accept that he did this because she is Ron's sister. Quite sad.
Anyway's, on their way to school, the magical archway at the train station mysteriously seals itself, so Harry and Ron decide to take the flying car to Hogwarts. After nearly being expelled for this, strange things indeed start happening, and students start being attacked. Harry gets attacked by a rouge bludger during a Quidditch game, and in an effort to mend his broken bones, has all of his bones removed by inept teacher Gildroy Lockhart. This scene also seemed to start a trend in Harry Potter movies. The scene is faster and more elaborate than the flying scene in the previous movie, and so now every Harry Potter movie has to feature a flying scene that is even more elaborate than the previous, which leads to some beautiful visuals, but absolutely unbelievable scenes in the later movies (either that, or you could argue that they are trying to show off IMAX technology). Anyway's, so Harry looses his arm, Hermione is out for about a quarter of the book from a potion that went wrong (or about 5 minutes of the movie), and students continue being attacked. The only thing we know is that the Chamber of Secrets has been opened, and a monster is on the loose. Sadly, what the Chamber of Secrets is gets reduced to about 60 seconds in this movie, and what the monster is gets reduced to about 30 seconds, so people who blink or don't pause the movie when they go off to the other room may be completely lost when they come back and see Harry fighting a giant snake in the sewers. You got to pay attention in this movie, or you will miss something.
Video quality
I gave The Sorcerer's Stone a perfect score, and did not think that anything could score higher than that. The Chamber of Secrets may have actually outdone it. No film grain can be seen, and with as sharp and clear as The Sorcerer's Stone seemed to be, this movie just seems to be more sharp and clear. Now I could go back and lower the score for the previous movie, but that would mean also lowering the score for everything else. There comes a point where you have to just say "This is perfect", and if anything ever exceeds that, you must then say "This is better than perfect".
There is an important difference between the two movies that should be pointed out. Chamber of Secrets is a much darker film than Sorcerer's Stone, and as such, you cannot make out as much details in the sets. In fact, there are several scenes in this film where you cannot see the back of the sets - they are hidden in shadows and darkness. Please don't get me wrong, this film looks absolutely incredible. The dark areas are dark as they were the director's intentions, and you can clearly see different shades of black - they do not all blend together.
However, "Perfect" does not necessarily mean "reference" or "demo disc" in my book. "Perfect" means that it is absolutely impossible for the film to look better, and that is why it gets a ten out of ten. "Reference" to me means that all future movies should live up to this standard, as they do something that blows away everything that has been done before, and "demo" means for you to show your friends. No, this transfer I am going to list as nearly perfect.
The problem with having a perfect picture is you start to see issues with some of the CGI and puppets, but that is fine. Dobby does seem a little flat, but that is okay.
Sound quality
Okay, time for me to admit something - I HATE Uncompressed PCM audio tracks. The reason - you can ONLY get surround sound out of it if you export the audio through your HDMI cable to your receiver. As so few receivers support this, and then only the expensive ones, the rest of us are limited to 2 channel sound, or having to go with the Dolby DIgital track to get surround. On top of that, PCM only offers audio at 48 kHz, or CD quality, whereas Dolby TrueHD and DTS Master Audio both offer 96kHz and 192kHz sound. The result: in this case, the HD-DVD version offers higher quality audio. I truthfully feel that the PCM audio tracks were a marketing gimmick used by the Blu-Ray market to rub in the face of HD-DVD fanboys that we have disc space to spare for uncompressed audio.
Lucky for us, the Dolby Digital track offered is VERY good. There is incredible depth in this track, from the rumbling lows of the subwoofer channel to the highs and trebles of the woodwind and strings in the orchestra. John Williams's orchestrated soundtrack is an absolutely incredible backdrop to this movie. In fact, I will go as far to say as the soundtrack is the most important character in this movie.
Sadly, like most movies, the rear channels do get underused by the movie itself. Oh, granted, it does get used by the orchestra, and gives you the feeling of being the conductor standing there in the middle, but the movie itself seems to be front-heavy, with the rears being used only for added ambience and the occasional sound effect.
But the movie does sound good, and I am really just nitpicking about things. The lack of a high-res audio track on the Blu-Ray is really the only thing keeping this movie from achieving a perfect score. NOTE TO HOLLYWOOD: GIVE US MORE DTS MASTER AUDIO TRACKS, AND QUIT IT WITH THE PCM AUDIO TRACKS!!!
I should also point out that the foreign language tracks sound REALLY good. I just kept watching the scene with Dobby at the beginning of the movie over and over again in the different languages. The German language dub has always been my favorite - Harry sounds like he is being dubbed by a little girl, and it is quite entertaining. That, und ich liebe gerade die deutsche sprache.
Bonus features
This disc copies all of the bonus features on previous DVD releases - minus the mini-game. Thankfully, most of these are much higher quality than those on The Sorcerer's Stone, and are actually watchable. There is also more substance to these features. The deleted scenes are VERY good - they are actually finished with music and special effects. Sadly, everything is still in standard-def, exact copies from the previous DVD release.
Final Word
The movie is one of the most popular stories ever written, and the movie is loved by children and adults alike around the world. The only thing that would have made this movie better is if Warner had put both the theatrical and extended versions of this on the disc. I bet we will have to wait for this until all seven movies have been released, and then Warner Bros will release an ultimate movie collection. This is a highly recommended movie.