SPOILER DISCUSSION

1.Great detail early on. Lucius takes out only one book but puts back two. Harry takes note of said action, so when he calls it out at the end of the film, it’s more than warranted. It takes so long for the book to become a major player in the story so this initial act of deceit doesn’t immediately call attention to itself.

2.If anything, this chapter in the franchise makes me disappointed we don’t get more of the Slytherin trilogy of Draco, Crabbe (Jamie Waylett), and Goyle (Joshua Herdman) in the other movies (or the books by and large). Harry and Ron’s Polyjuice shenanigans are endearing especially as they try and play up to Draco’s ego. Harry throwing himself under the bus as Goyle is gold; talk about knowing your rival.

Speaking of which, sans The Half Blood Prince, Chamber of Secrets is the only entry to do justice to the Draco and Harry rivalry teased in The Sorcerer’s Stone. Draco is so desperate to match up with Harry, going so far as to “buy” the Quidditch team, as Hermione puts it, in order to compete as a seeker. When Harry is rumored to the the heir to the Chamber, Draco is more irritated that people would be as insipid as to believe a dolt like Harry could be a mastermind murderer. It’s fitting that the duel between the two characters, more precisely Draco’s choice to conjure a serpent, is the reason that Harry gained such a reputation in the first place.

3,Lockhart is a miss and his scenes feel wasted – a shame especially given how emphatic Branagh plays the role. His role as a master manipulator plays very little role in the larger mechanics of the story, either narratively or thematically; in fact, his inclusion in the story only raises more questions, namely how Dumbledore (Richard Harris) would allow such an imbecile to teach such an important course.

I can forgive Lockhart being tasked with rescuing Ginny (Bonnie Wright) because it feels like the staff is delegating the duty to him more as farce than anything else – a way to keep him out of the way as they figure out a real solution. Harry and Ron misinterpret his actual role and end up taking him task in relation to it. But that doesn’t justify what he adds to the story – a problem when he’s given so much screen time.

4. Tom’s (Christian Coulson) initial recollection of Hagrid’s expulsion is done in a grayscale that presents the past as a kind of truth. Harry is cast as an observer and is kept in color because he’s an “active” participant within the memory. I wish this was carried over in some fashion at the 126~ minute mark when Tom starts to recollect how he manipulated Ginny. Instead of showing the flashback in a similar grayscale recreation of the events, Columbus opts for a series of dissolves; the choice is uninspired.

Imagine instead if the recollection of Ginny’s manipulation was presented in a similar black-and-white fashion but with Tom in more defined color to exemplify that he is becoming an active agent in the world once again. Maybe this exact implementation doesn’t work, but something more creative in this moment would have more fitting.

5.The chamber set-piece itself is spectacular and is riveting from start to finish. Every little element adds to the mystical and sinister nature of the location. The door guarding the chamber proper is adorned with snakes and opens only with Parseltongue. Upon being opened, a snake moves around the frame of the door and opens it. The chamber itself is adorned with snake heads all around. There’s water all over the floor, adding to the grime and uncanny feeling of the location. This feeling is made more prominent in the tunnels which are dark and musty.

The basilisk itself has aged well and the close-up shots of it interacting with Harry are viscerally charged, no doubt due to the animatronic snake head used for the scene. The moment of collision between Harry and the basilisk feels grounded as a result.

The most prominent feature of the area is the sculpted out face of Salazar Slytherin from which the basilisk slithers out from. It’s a fantastic focal point that makes it clear once and for all the depths of Salazar’s hatred for Muggles and their kin. The basilisk exits his mouth like a tongue – a literal “Parseltongue.”