The
second movie in the Harry Potter series,
like its predecessor, is a fine-looking, faithfully adapted, slightly bland
film. At 2 hours and 40 minutes, it’s
the longest film in the franchise, and my attention definitely wanders in
places. At this point, the series still
hasn’t quite found its feet, and its biggest strengths continue to be its
engaging source material and homerun casting.
Harry’s
second year at Hogwarts brings, what else – an evil plot that needs foiling! Harry, Ron, and Hermione investigate the rash
of mysterious attacks throughout the school, reportedly caused by a legendary
monster under the thrall of the so-called “heir of Slytherin.” Harry learns more about Lord Voldemort,
learning more about himself in the process.
Plus, one of the biggest recurring social themes from the books, that of
blood prejudice, is introduced. It’s
hinted at, barely, in The Sorcerer’s
Stone, but bigotry in the wizarding world earns major focus here. The heir of Slytherin’s prime targets are
Muggle-born witches and wizards, children of non-magical parentage who are
considered by some of the wizarding elite to be unworthy of learning
magic. Beyond the big plot stuff,
however, there are also a number of smaller microagressions that bring this
side of the wizarding community to the fore; Ron is outraged when the epithet “mudblood”
is hurled at Muggle-born Hermione, and the entire Weasley family, especially
patriarch Arthur, are thought to be “blood traitors” for their associations
with Muggles and Muggle-borns.
Some overall
pros and cons. In the plus column, the
film stars to expand our view of the wizarding world (the Weasleys’ house looks
fantastic,) some of the humor is a delight, and the entire flying car sequence
makes for a good time. You can tell it’s
starting to come together a little more as a series; this film feels more “settled”
than the one that came before it. On the
downside, the length is very evident, it doesn’t yet have the personality of
some of the later films, and Dobby is maybe a little too accurate (he’s
super-annoying, is what I’m saying.) Oh,
and it really bugs me that devoted mother Molly Weasley barely reacts when her
sons tell her that Harry’s aunt and uncle have been treating him like a
prisoner (locked in his room, bars on his windows) and starving him. And it’s not
even like in A Series of Unfortunate Events,
where it’s clear that the adults in the Baudelaires’ lives either don’t believe
their accusations about Count Olaf or are too frightened/weak-willed/milquetoast/etc.
to do anything about it; instead, it’s like no one cares all that much that
Harry is being abused by his guardians.
Come on!
The
kids’ acting is already improving.
Rupert Grint is terrific, Emma Watson feels more natural (she manages “uptight”
without seeming as studied,) and Daniel Radcliffe is coming along well. As for the adults, new additions Kenneth
Branagh (hilariously cheesy as the pompous wizard celebrity Gilderoy Lockhart)
and Jason Isaacs (cool and sinister as the awful wizard purist Lucius Malfoy –
with a name like that, you just know he’s not a good guy) fire on all
cylinders.
One last
quibble – I suppose it’s technically accurate, given he’s current skill set, but
Harry’s total ineptness at holding and wielding a sword lessens the Big Damn
Hero factor of the climax.
Warnings
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