Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets.

Synopsis:
Read the bloody book, you lazy bastards.

Review:
Well, it's better than the first one. But that's not saying much. The kids still can't act, the grown-ups all look pissed off (with the exception of Mark Williams (Arthur Weasley), who seems to be having a great time, and Jason Isaacs (Lucius Malfoy) who's too busy camping it up something rotten). The effects are all right, the castle is pretty and the Quidditch is ludicrous (I never liked Quidditch in the first place, though, so I'm a teensy bit biased). The story has been chopped up into tiny weeny peices, and only the very barest bones of the actual plot have made it to the screen. I know this is the process that any book goes through when you do a screen adaptation, but would it have killed them to have kept some of the funny bits? They were what made the books so good...

I'm not going to harp on about the acting, but... That's a lie. Commence harping.

The kid playing Ron, whose name I should really look up, if only to make it look as if I know what I'm typing about, was actually reasonable. Certainly better than the script he was working from (Start on a positive note).

Daniel Radcliffe (played Harry, name possibly spelt wrong, or indeed remembered wrong) is passable, acting wise, but he's too damn pretty. Harry's supposed to be this short, skinny, scruffy, knock-kneed little kid, in old, poorly-fitting clothes. In the movie, he looks like he's just come from a Gap Kids ad. He looks like he's going to be on the cover of GQ in a few years.

Hermione (Yes, I will do some research at some point. I think it's Emma something, but I'm probably wrong). Again, acting passable, if overly smug (even for Hermione), look all wrong. Too pretty, again, and her hair seems less bushy, more crimped. And now I'm just nitpicking, aren't I? After all, it's a movie. And you're not allowed to have ordinary-looking people in movies. Unless they're actually beautiful people in a big pair of glasses, different make-up and a cardigan, who'll later be wonderfully transformed into somebody that people will like by the process of taking off the glasses, putting on different make-up, and wearing something that shows their tits. I hate movies.

Tom Felton (played Draco, didn't need to look that one up thanks to the disturbing antics of certain Slytherin-obssesed people that I hang around with) - looked OK, wasn't posh enough, shouldn't have been given long speeches. He spits words, rather than saying them. Maybe that's how he was taught to do confrontational, but I kept expecting the others to start wiping gob out of their eyes, expecially in the bookshop scene (Harry was all right, he had eye protection...). And (I'm sorry to re-iterate this, but), NOT POSH ENOUGH! And freakishly huge eyes. Although the hair probably made them look worse than they are. Don't get me started on the hair (eww...).

Other assorted children - the rest of the Weasleys; quite good. Fred and George were a bit pants, but they must've been difficult roles to cast. Dudley; Very good, but he's supposed to be blond. Like all the rest of the bad guys (Er, except Voldemort). Neville; ah, he's OK. Colin Creevy; freaky mutant frog-boy! He was frightening. Lee Jordan; hard to tell, as he didn't actually get to do anything. Wood; very good. The (rest of the) Griffindor Quidditch team; some lines might've been good. Justin Finch-Fletchly; thank fuck they cut out the bits with him talking (check out the deleted scenes on the DVD if you wanna be nausiated). The (rest of the) Slytherin Quidditch team; what was that I was saying about only beautiful people being in movies? Sorry guys... Seamus Finnegan; ugh. Dean Thomas; where the hell is he? Ernie Macmillian; cut out entirely, but he was quite good. Check out the deleted scenes. Everyone else; too insignificant too mention (or to get much screen time).

On to the adults. Dumbledore. Played by that really famous dead guy, whose name I should know. He was OK. He was quite good. He seemed a bit too frail and old, but with retrospect, that's understandable... Oh, and the French and Saunders piss-take was right, he did talk too slowly. Maybe he was trying to calm the kids down by example.

Professor McGonnagal. Perfect. Doesn't get enough lines, though.

Professor Snape. Goddamn, Alan Rickman's hot. And therefore completely wrong for the part. Because it should not be possible to fancy Snape. It shouldn't. It's wrong. He wasn't mean enough, either. Although I liked the creeping around the desk in the bit in his office at the start. Also the flouncing around at the duel. The robes really suit him... So does the hair... (Stupid sexy Rickman...)

The Dursleys (aside from certain hair-colour issues) were perfect, as were the Weasleys (Mr Mason was Bishop Brennen! Kicking up the arse comments obligatory throughout the entire dinner party scene). The Burrow was bloody brilliant. Hermione's parents didn't get a single line, which was completely in keeping with the books.

Hagrid was annoying, but in an authentic kind of a way. Fang was pretty much spot-on.

Filtch was very good, but not mean enough. He was quite mean to Harry, but didn't get a chance to be mean to anyone else, which was a shame.

Professor Sprout was cool, she had groovy earmuffs. Madam Pomphrey wasn't bossy enough, though (Everyone is too nice, goddammit!).

Lucius Malfoy was camper than I'd envisioned him, but he had good hair, and I want his wand. Um, read into that what you will, but I didn't mean it that way, honest. Check out the deleted scenes if you wanna see Draco getting smacked around some more, and also Ed Tudor-Pole's worst performance ever (that I have been privy to, at any rate). He was Borgin. He got cut out. I wish they'd kept that scene in, and re-cast it. Or possibly just hit him around the head with a chair until he stopped doing the bloody voice.

Right, harping about acting over, commence harping about other things.

Slytherin v. Griffindor. And books v. movies. Like all the other bad and quasi-bad characters, the Slytherins in general, and Malfoy in particular, never get to do anything really bad in the movies. Quick bit of personal Harry Potter history - I read the books first, then started trawling around on the internet, then finally saw the movies. In the books, Malfoy's a disgusting, irritating little bully, whom you really want to strangle with a flobberworm. Well, I did, anyway. And then I started reading fanfic and the like, and was shocked and surprised to discover that the entire bloody internet was in love in him. So I skimmed through those for a while, going 'ewww! What the hell's wrong with you people? If you love blond arseholes so much, why don't you write about Dudley for a change? Where are getting this from? Have you read the books?!' And then, quite a while later, I saw the movies. I saw Chamber of Secrets first, then Philosopher's Stone (I did try to see them in order, but fate was against me). And then I finally started to get it. Because, in the movies, Draco doesn't come across as a little bullying bastard, he comes across as a bit naughty, and yet Slytherin get shat on just as badly. And it doesn't seem justified any more (whereas, you read the books and you're going 'yes! Die, you little pigknockers!') And when you compare him to the main three, who don't get to have nearly as much character as they do in the books (on account of everything that isn't plot being thrown out of the window), he may seem a bit more interesting. Especially if you only read the books once, quite a while ago... Anyway, my point was, the bad guys should be badder.

Something I did like about the film in general (there had to be something) was the way they used the named characters as extras. Which fits, because this isn't an enormous school (aroundabout forty kids in a year, if we take Harry's year as being fairly typical, seven different years altogether, that makes two hundred and eighty. In school terms (no pun intended), that's incy. I dare say that's wrong, and I dare say someone somewhere has got a much more accurate estimate, based on obessive nitpicking, but I've come this far, and damned if I'm going to start doing research at this point), and you wouldn't have various assorted random never-to-be seen again students wandering around the halls.

Now then. Voldemort. Again, too pretty, but he's got a silly 50s haircut, so it all evens out. He must be great at Boggle. He's quite evil. He's almost evil enough. Almost. He seems to be wearing a blue tie, though (at the end, where he shows up in colour). Thought he was supposed to be in Slytherin (On a similar topic, in the flying lesson, in Philosopher's Stone, it looks like Draco's wearing a Hufflepuff tie. An interesting parallel universe, possibly? Or maybe it's just our telly)? He looks really upset when Harry stabs the Basilisk (with the crappest sword in the world), bless.

The Basilisk was cool, but the blatant stupidity of the hearing just annoys me. Snakes can smell. Snakes can smell really well. It was flickering it's wickle tongue about three inches away from Harry's face. It would've eaten him, however many stones he chucked around. And why do it this way? Because trying not to make a noise can be done visually, but trying not to smell can't (Especially if you've been legging it around the Chamber of Secrets for good few minutes with a huge fuck-off basilisk chasing you after wading though ancient water-and-corpse-logged dungeons).

I like house-elves (I also like Jar-Jar Binks. There may be something wrong with me). And not just because I want one (although, obviously, I do want one. Who wouldn't? They do all the housework, and you can smack them around when you're in a bad mood and there's nothing they can do about it. Just like having a child, except you don't have to pay for schools). I thought Dobby was funny, and quite cute. The whole CGI-integrated-with-live-action thing wasn't done too badly either. Rowling's understanding of the psychology of masochism still disturbs me slightly.

But enough of this - conclusions: the movie was all right, but you should read the books first. And if you really like them... then you're probably best off avoiding the movies. Oh, and if you're considering buying it, don't get the DVD. It's not quite as horrific as the Philosopher's Stone DVD, but it is fairly full of poorly constructed shite. Thrown into sharp relief in my case, as I watched this at aroundabout the same time I was making my way through the Fellowship of the Ring special edition. Now there's a well designed DVD. Which I may even get round to reviewing at some point.

Oooo, one last thing. Thankfully the stupid hats that they made most of the students wear for most of the time in Philosopher's Stone don't make much of a reappearance. They were horrible, and they made everyone look like garden gnomes (muggle garden gnomes, anyway). Seriously, if I was a little wizard-like child, and I was supposed to be going to Hogwarts, and my mum went out and bought me one of them, I'd be like 'nooooo! Send me to Durmstrang! Dark arts, fantastic! Roll on the glaciers!'

See also the Harry Potter rant in Misc.