White Plains CitizeNetReporter - MOVIE REVIEW: Vacationing with <i>Harry Potter</i>

WPCNR White Plains Variety. Movie Review By Bob Barrabee. From The Yonkers Tribune Reprinted with Permission. November 23, 2002: -- I have been lately feeling overly busy and overly tired. My day-to-day grind has been getting me down. The perfect prescription for such a condition would undoubtedly be a vacation; a week spent relaxing, preferably somewhere warm.

Unfortunately, like most of my fellow Americans, I cannot simply take a vacation whenever I feel as though I need one. Vacations require planning, ample accumulation of off days, advance notice, and, usually, a good deal of extra cash. I have been too busy and too tired to deal with any of this.

In fact, just about the only thing I’ve had the energy to do recently is drag my sorry self to the movies. But lo and behold, like a nearly defeated Quidditch Seeker who just happens to have the Golden Snitch fall into his lap, the remedy to my exhaustion-induced down-troddenness actually found me, as I sat lazily (exhaustedly) inside my local multiplex’s Theater Number 1.

The feature that day was Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, and it was exactly the vacation I needed.

The newest ‘Harry Potter,’ you see, is cinema escapism at its best. It is two hours and forty-one minutes spent in a world entirely different from our own. Instead of deadlines to meet, there are riddles to solve. Instead of cars rolling slowly through the midst of heavy traffic, there are cars flying quickly into the arms of angry tree monsters.

The world of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets is hugely imaginative, painstakingly rendered, and gleefully unlike 21st Century Earth. It is a world worth getting lost in.

The film’s story, as devoted J.K. Rowling readers already know, is much the same as the original. Harry and his friends have another mystery to solve, and that mystery is again filled with supernatural forces, characters who aren’t what they seem, and plenty of opportunities for budding-wizard heroics.

As for the budding wizards themselves, Harry (played by Daniel Radcliffe) is slightly older and slightly wiser. His friend Hermione (Emma Watson) is slightly older and just as wise as ever. And his other friend, Ron Weasley (Rupert Grint), is slightly older, perhaps no wiser, but certainly a good deal funnier (and he was pretty funny before). All three of these characters are immensely likeable (for kids and adults alike), and all three are played by immensely gifted young actors.

The simple fact that they can all hold their own opposite the likes of Maggie Smith (Professor McGonagal), Kenneth Branagh (the newly hired Professor Lockhart), and the late Richard Harris (Professor Dumbledore), proves this beyond any reasonable doubt, as I’m sure even Snape would agree.

A new addition to the cast is a self-abusing, computer-generated creature by the name of Dobby (voiced by Toby Jones). It is almost impossible to make mention of Dobby without raising comparisons to Jar Jar Binks, that most hated character from ‘Star Wars Episode I’ (I couldn’t do it). Dobby and Jar Jar are indeed very similar in many ways, but there is one major difference: Dobby is terrific. He is cute and funny and silly and strange. He is everything a CGI character should be. Take some notes, Mr. Lucas. Take some notes.

The weakest part of this latest ‘Harry Potter’ installment, if you ask me, is the same as the weakest part of the last one: the plot. The characters are wonderful and wonderfully fleshed out, and the same can be said for the atmosphere, but the plot is unspectacular.

The actual mystery, the whodunit, the how-you-go-about-finding-out-whodunit; this is where the movies falls short. It is not really all that clever. Not all that clever at all.

But, as I said, I’ve been taken to a new world with this movie—a spectacular new world. And in this new world, where I forget all about deadlines and traffic jams and day-to-day worries, I also forget all about the importance of a clever plot. I guess you could say I’m under Harry Potter’s spell, and, like any good vacation, I’m glad to be there.

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, directed by Chris Columbus. Written by Steve Kloves. Based on the novel by J.K. Rowling. Starring Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint, Emma Watson, Maggie Smith, Kenneth Branagh, Jason Isaacs, Robbie Coltrane, and (the already sorely missed) Richard Harris.

Note: WPCNR introduces, with pleasure, the movie reviews of cinemafanatic, Bob Barrabee, whose loyal reviews appear in The Yonkers Tribune. Fittingly, Mr. Barrabee reviews one of the movies you can take the kids to see this Thanksgiving.


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