Harry Potter and Chamber of Secrets appreciation thread

I have to be honest, its a fight out between this and Deathly Hallows Part 2 for my least favourite. Branagh is fantastic and it does have some really good individual moments and some nice set pieces, but overall I find it too long and too messy.

It's actually one of my favourites of the series, but more for the nostalgia than anything else. One of my favourite movie memories as a kid is going to see this one in theatres after trying so hard to finish the book ahead of time, but ended up being too terrified to actually complete it.

I think it's a very good and indeed very rewatchable movie, but not as great as Prisoner of Azkaban or Deathly Hallows.

It's better than Order of the Phoenix... but that's also not saying much.

It's fine. It's a little meandering, though, and Columbus definitely isn't up to the task of handling the "serious" elements. I do find it fairly rewatchable though, and I appreciate it as a bridging gap between the more kid-friendly Potter, and the darker portion of the series.

It's a lot of fun, and the funniest until Half-Blood Prince. There's also already a lot of improvements over the original in the acting and cinematography. I think its only big problem is that it's a bit episodic.

Goblet of Fire is the worst.

It's my favorite! I'm in the minority in that I love the first few more than the last four, because I love the family feel of the first three.

underrated as fuck, tho not worth mentioning in front of last 3 and 3rd one.

Awesome man 

I don't particularly like Sorcerer's Stone though 

The action in that movie is rather well done and pretty fun. The spiders and the Basilisk especially have this entertaining "kiddie horror" vibe going on, definitely following the spirit of stuff like 80s Amblin movies. Columbus probably doesn't get enough credit for establishing the tone of the films, there was something fairly natural about the eventual transition into "dramatic thriller" mode because of how he was originally playing to 10 year olds, following Rowling's lead.

Casting is endearingly campy brilliance like always. Branagh and Isaacs just step on for their cues like they'd been waiting backstage the whole time on the first one. Kind of amazing how nearly everybody who got in on that series knew exactly how broadly to play it. (Movie 4 excepted...)

Production design and music, characteristically high quality. Stuart Craig's world-building has really got to be one of the most impressively cohesive achievements by one designer in film history. John Williams kept his thing going, several catchy and expressive new ditties with plenty of deliciously rollicking scherzos for the action setpieces.

The only thing about that movie for me is it exists in this weird uncanny valley. The kids are no longer cute enough to excuse their lack of emotional nuance, and they're physically at that gawky preteen age that gives them an awkward, self-conscious screen presence. It's also in that weird transitional period where the films were still building their audience, so the screenplay has this transparent "catching up from the first film" expositional quality that is slightly irritating e.g. "There's only one place we're going to get all of this: Diagon Alley!" Somehow that Captain Obvious feeling also seeps into other areas like the film's sense of humor...later on the series ran into the opposite problem when I missed the occasional extra bit of emphasis or time spent better reintegrating old and forgotten characters / plot elements, which might have added some necessary clarity or resonance.

I kinda considered Order of the Phoenix my least favorite. Chamber of Secrets is somewhat a runner up for me, but not really a bad HP movie in a sense either. I do agree however that it has more repeated value compare to Order of the Phoenix.