Fond of happy endings and hardly a man who�s anti-sentimentality, the second in the multi-zillion pound-cadging blockbuster in the �Harry Potter� franchise is again directed by Chris Columbus, who also helmed the first in the series, and years before that made healthy money on the backs of �Home Alone� and who can forget �Mrs. Doubtfire�!
Yet his compelling whimsy is infallible, and far from being the man who discovered America, this Chris Columbus is a man whom America should be hugely proud of.
�The Chamber of Secrets� is awesome, and Kenneth Branagh ace as dashing con-man Lockhart, the new teacher on the Hogwarts scene as �defender of the dark arts.� Branagh has accrued mass respect throughout his career moreover for being �dead serious� in his acting, but here he�s hilarious. Mind, he can�t fail to upstage veteran comedian John Cleese, because he�s got all of 2 minutes screen time!
JK Rowling, who is the author of the novels and now a household name because of them, doesn�t know how lucky she is.
The grandeur of this epic is edgily dogged by a darker atmosphere than first time around, which rouses more interest, and the scene in the Dark Forest visually mauls each and every last scene in silly caper �Eight-Legged Freaks.� Seeing the flying car being chased by the Hogwarts Express (don�t ask, it�s too unbelievable a premise if you�ve not already read the book) is a classic movie magic moment. And leaving the cinema with a drab of a tear in my colourblind eyes is testament to the fact that this movie is a hugely sentimental and clean-cut �good versus evil� story, but it hits where it hurts. Ah, I�m fucking blind!!
(STEVE RUDD)