Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
The first thing you should know is that it's all here. Moaning Myrtle, the Whomping Willow, mandrake roots, the Howler - the heaping lot of it.
The second thing you should know is that ''Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets'' is, at 2 hours and 41 minutes, even longer than the first film in the series, last year's ''Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone'' - but that it's more entertaining and moves nimbly enough to keep your way-back seat from turning to stone.
The third thing to understand is that one would have to be a silly Muggle indeed to take a child under the age of 8 or 9 (depending upon maturity) to ''Chamber.'' There's the issue of length, for one thing: Disney cartoons are a fidget-free 80 minutes for a reason. But more important, the new film in the Potter juggernaut moves the franchise even closer to Indiana Jones territory, with bloodcurdling action scenes and a passel of climactic computer-generated slime beasties unparalleled in their potential ability to - I'm quoting from both book and film here - '' rip, tear, rend, kill. ''
You want therapy bills? Then by all means take the toddlers. For everyone else - 'tweeners who can quote entire passages from the J. K. Rowling novels, grown-ups who've devoured the books on the sly - ''Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets'' delivers all you would want and just a smidgen less. Directed once again by Chris Columbus, the new movie has everything Hollywood money can buy: great British actors and talented newcomers, splendiferous production design, and special effects that recalibrate what movies can do.
What money can't buy - inspiration - ''Chamber'' lacks. No one will much notice.
For those who remain Rowling-free, the story begins as kid wizard Harry Potter (Daniel Radcliffe) returns to Hogwarts Academy in a flying car with best pal Ron Weasley (Rupert Grint), despite the best efforts of a house elf named Dobby (plaintive voice by Toby Jones) to warn him off. There, with fetching know-it-all Hermione Granger (Emma Watson), the friends investigate a series of events that threaten to destroy any students with human parentage and bring down headmaster Albus Dumbledore (the late Richard Harris, looking exhausted but game in his final role).
There's much to investigate. A Quidditch bludger tries to stave Harry's head in (if that's incomprehensible, you'll just have to find a kid to translate). Bloody messages are scrawled on hallways and students are found in a petrified sleep. Has the legendary Chamber of Secrets, built by Salazar Slytherin a millennium ago, been reopened? Is Harry Slytherin's heir? And what's with all the spiders?
Even at 161 minutes, ''Chamber'' feels like a truncated version of the book; heaven help us when it comes time to adapt the 750-page ''Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.'' Columbus makes sure to touch on just about everything Rowling mentions, but he gives some scenes short shrift - Ron's ingratiating father and prefect brother are much less prominent - while leaving in episodes that could have been lost to the benefit of the film as a whole. A late-inning attack of giant spiders may have given the CGI department months of work, but the sequence has no narrative purpose, and it'll give younger children the screaming meemies in the bargain.
But Columbus (''Mrs. Doubtfire,'' ''Home Alone'') has always been strong on Big Scenes and a hack when it comes to portraying cliche-free human interaction. This time out, it's the novelties that enchant: the felicitous clutter of the Weasley house, Kenneth Branagh 's glorious preening as fraudulent fop Gilderoy Lockhart, an assault by airborne pixies that look like the offspring of Gremlins and Smurfs.
Much of the rest feels either comfortably familiar or like business as usual. Still, a doubter can relax knowing that characters are in the hands of reliable Brits such as Alan Rickman (Severus Snape), Jason Isaacs (sneering Lucius Malfoy), Miriam Margolyes (Professor Sprout), and Shirley Henderson (sly and whining and oddly sexy as a ghost who haunts the girls loo). As for Harry, Hermione, and Ron, they continue to be brought effectively to life by stalwart Radcliffe, charming Watson, and amusing Grint, even if the last overdoes the bug-eyed grimaces.
''Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets'' isn't really meant to be a movie, anyway. Think of it as a simulacrum: a faithful replication of a beloved object. And wait, as lovers of real moviemaking are doing, for the third installment, ''Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban,'' to be directed by Alfonso Cuaron of ''Y Tu Mama Tambien'' and ''A Little Princess.'' Then we may finally see a truer cinematic magic.
Ty Burr can be reached at tburr@globe.com.
Video
