Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (2002)

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets could go, as a sequel, one of three ways – as good as the first one if not a little better, leaps and bounds better than the first, or a dreadful second coming. The first one, Sorcerer’s Stone, was actually quite good, but the second one improves on the first by jumping straight into the plot, which is:

Harry Potter (Daniel Radcliffe) ignores several warnings not to return to Hogwarts for his second year at the wizarding school, even hitching a ride in a flying car owned by the family of his chum Ron Weasley (Rupert Grint). But upon arrival and reuniting with Hermione Granger (Emma Watson), Harry finds that a dark secret from Hogwarts’s past has resurfaced, and students are beginning to fall now that the “Chamber of Secrets” has been opened.

First of all, I lightly complained that much of Sorcerer’s Stone felt a little plotless, meandering and reveling in the world-building until the somewhat plot-heavy third act. Chamber of Secrets immediately rectifies that and dives headlong into the plot – revealing, in fact, that we’ve already been in the midst of the plot because of the long history of Hogwarts. The film’s opening scene finds Harry being told by the house elf Dobby that he must not return, with the movie containing a dual mystery of the identity of Salazar Slytherin’s heir and what it means for said heir to open the Chamber of Secrets. The mystery angle here is perhaps sharper than in the first one, foregrounded as it is through each of the character interactions and classroom sequences, as when Maggie Smith’s Professor McGonagall provides a mini-exposition lecture on the stakes of the attacks plaguing students.

As a result, the atmosphere is grimmer the second time around, though returning director Chris Columbus doesn’t make it unbearable or inconsistent with the first. There remains the sense of wonderment amid great danger – something key, I think, for a film which is ostensibly a children’s movie but wants to retain that adult audience – and there are several shots of the castle interiors that are frankly beautiful. Additionally, the film is wisely aware of the need to do things differently while retaining many of the familiar trappings; for instance, there’s another Quidditch match (as, I expect, there is in every film), but it’s satisfyingly different from Harry’s first outing on a broomstick.

The best addition made by Chamber of Secrets, about which I cannot say enough, is that of Kenneth Branagh as new professor Gilderoy Lockhart. In what feels a bit like a caricature of his own often self-aggrandizing Bardolatry, Branagh is uproariously funny as the infinitely conceited Lockhart, who quotes liberally from his own collected works, citing his own marvelous deeds, and blustering his way past anyone who so much as intimates he might be slightly full of it. I’ve talked about scene stealers on this blog before, but Branagh practically reinvents the concept and walks away with the film entire with this performance. It bears repeating, because I’m not exaggerating here; every sequence with Gilderoy Lockhart had me in fits of hysterics.  Chamber of Secrets is worth the watch, if only for Branagh’s exceedingly delightful performance.

Fortunately, there are many other elements worth enjoying in Chamber of Secrets. Columbus’s swan song for the franchise is a fine note on which to end for him, the rest of the supporting cast are quite charming in their own way, and the world of Harry Potter feels deeper for all that the film contributes to the larger mythology of the character.

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets is rated PG for “scary moments, some creature violence and mild language.” The plot is darker than the first one, with students frozen in death-like trances; several scary creatures, including giant spiders and an enormous snake, haunt the castle this time around. Again, “bloody hell” is invoked.

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (2001)

Next year the Harry Potter films turn fifteen; the books themselves are four years older, set to turn twenty in 2017. Now’s as good a time as any for me to take stock of the film franchise, which I’ve only reviewed in patches here and there. The first film, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s (née Philosopher’s) Stone, is still a remarkably engaging film, even if its magical meanderings leave much of the narrative drive until only the third act.

A young orphan named Harry Potter (Daniel Radcliffe), taken in by his vile aunt and uncle, discovers upon turning eleven that he is of magical heritage, and he’s been admitted to the prestigious Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. There he develops his magical abilities, befriends Ron Weasley (Rupert Grint) and Hermione Granger (Emma Watson), and uncovers a plot to use the alchemical Philosopher’s Stone to resurrect a great evil.

British film critic Mark Kermode has accused Chris Columbus of “direct[ing] like a bean counter,” which I don’t think is an entirely fair assessment of Columbus’s directorial abilities – at least, not as on display here. What I do see from Columbus is a very respectful approach to the wildly popular J. K. Rowling novel, one that is almost slavishly faithful to the source material but deftly managing not to feel exorbitant or devoutly bloated. Instead, Columbus directs with the ocular equivalent of “gee-whiz,” marveling at the lightly soft-focused fantasies of the film and allowing the audience to feel that same sense of wonder.

It’s not a perfect film, however, because there’s a strong sense – particularly around the second act of the film – that Sorcerer’s Stone is, for lack of a kinder word, wasting time. I don’t mean that there are things that need to be cut, but the film is much more interested in world-building and character development than in furthering the plot once Harry gets to Hogwarts. It isn’t until the third act that the mystery of the Philosopher’s Stone is revealed and the clues are assembled, giving Sorcerer’s Stone much less of a sense of being plot-driven than its subsequent installments.

Fortunately, both the characters and the world are immensely fascinating; the leading trio of young actors are superbly chosen, and each takes to their characters brilliantly. They’re helped by a virtual who’s-who of fine British performers, including Alan Rickman’s delightful sneering Severus Snape, Maggie Smith’s prim and sharp Minerva McGonagall, and the late great Richard Harris as headmaster Albus Dumbledore. I’ll have more to say on these folks as the films go on, because the show undeniably belongs to Radcliffe, Grint, and Watson, and their performances are largely note-perfect. The film's visuals, too, are especially dazzling, particularly the Quidditch match (think magical rugby on brooms), and it's to Columbus's credit that the sequence feels imperiled without losing any of the wonder in the film.

There’s one last element to the film that absolutely makes it a success after fifteen years, and that’s the unmistakable score by John Williams. I don’t know if a film score has ever so totally dominated the public’s connection with a particular musical instrument the way that Harry Potter has taken over our relationship with the celesta, but it’s impossible not to associate the franchise with “Hedwig’s Theme” as composed by Williams. It’s Williams at his undeniable best, conjuring up instantly iconic melodies that fit the film effortlessly while remaining distinctly listenable in isolation. As I said of Attack of the Clones and other Star Wars films, Williams’s score is so compelling that the rest of the film could be on mute and rest comfortably on the shoulders of the soundtrack.

As much as I remembered enjoying the films as a child and in spite of my recognition now that some of the plotting here is a little bit uneven, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone is charming enough that I have no qualms about continuing on to review the rest of the series.

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone is rated PG for “some scary moments and mild language.” There are a few creepy looking creatures, the occasional fantastical peril (such as a broomstick chase, a troll, and a large chess game), and one moment of particularly intense magical combat in which a two-faced man is apparently disintegrated. One of the characters says “bloody hell” a few times.

The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel (2012)

When I say that The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel (affectionately dubbed “Old People in India” by yours truly) is the anti-Avengers, I mean that in a good way, honestly.  Everything that The Avengers is, The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel is not, and vice versa.  None of this is to the film’s detriment, however, because there’s no reason the two films can’t come out the same weekend at the box office – and no reason I can’t enjoy both.

Director John Madden (of Shakespeare in Love, some of whose alums appear here) guides a cast of every elder British thespian (save Peter O’Toole, who was considered and whose absence here is a loss for us all) in a story of retirees who are misled by a garrulous advertisement for a retirement home “for the elderly and beautiful” owned and operated by the young Dev Patel (known to American audiences from Slumdog Millionaire).

Judi Dench is Evelyn, a blogger and young soul making the most of her experience; Tom Wilkinson is Graham, a former judge who grew up in India and has returned to seek out a former flame; Bill Nighy and Penelope Wilton (“Harriet Jones, MP”) are the married couple Douglas and Jean, at odds about their future prospects and in conflict over Douglas’s perennial optimism; and Maggie Smith is the scene-stealing Muriel, a crotchety and xenophobic (but, in the classic British tradition, eminently endearing) candidate for a hip replacement.

The stakes are not high here; there’s no world to save or, for the most part, character flaws to overcome (though Wilton and Smith do excellent work rendering their characters as, at best, difficult to love).  There are no superpowers or flamboyant costumes.  Nothing blows up.  So how does The Cinema King, who gave The Avengers such a rave review, like The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel?

Surprisingly, for the same reason I enjoyed The Avengers – a fun (but still emotionally compelling) story populated by entertaining characters portrayed by actors at the top of their game.  The obvious draw here likely isn’t the fish-out-of-water story (the trailers never touted that it was adapted from a book by Deborah Moggach) nor the exotic scenery.  Instead, the main attraction is the all-star cast of Britain’s most talented, all of whom bring their A-game to the table.  It’d be folly simply to catalog the actors and laud them individually, but their skills bear highlighting. 

Dench is charming and grandmotherly, as always, the kind of woman with whom you’d like to vacation.  Wilkinson handles his plotline with his trademark staid countenance, loosening up once in a while when he realizes retirement isn’t all serious business.  While Smith is more entertaining than one might expect from this movie – I had no idea her character was going to be so racist until her first scene – she might bring a tear to your eye as she begins to bond with one of the “untouchables.”  And Nighy and Wilton have perhaps the hardest job of all, Nighy repressing his natural charm to portray a man browbeaten by Wilton, who’s unwontedly shrewish and tasked with being the only unlikeable character in the piece. 

Even Patel, whose work in Slumdog Millionaire didn’t knock me out the way it did every other major film critic in the world, has fun here, resisting the apparent urge to pigeonhole by performing the stereotypical Indian figure (everything is “most beautiful” or “of the highest honor” and “we have a saying in India”), but when he’s among family and friends, he’s perfectly normal and speaks like everyone else in the film.  It’s a subtle distinction, but one which is much needed in a film which could very easily fall into the “empire coming back” trope.

All told, The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel is a satisfying film with a gifted cast who could redeem even an episode of Jersey Shore by ethos alone.  While it’s one of the quieter movies you’ll see all year, The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel is a perfect counterpoint to the high-octane action of the traditional summer blockbuster.

If nothing else, you’ll be calling your travel agent asking if Judi Dench is free for a weekend in New Delhi.

The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel is rated PG-13 “for sexual content and language.”  The UK's stock character of the libidinous old man accompanies our crew, attempting to meet ladies left and right, jesting all the while about it; additionally, the sexual relationship of the hotel’s owner with his girlfriend becomes the topic of discussion several times.  There’s one F-bomb and a few remarks which I suspect are more scandalous for a British audience than for us Yanks.