FilmBlather.com

"The Chamber of Secrets has been opened."

In my review of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone almost exactly a year ago, I wrote that I went into the movie "convinced that there was no way I was going to dislike it." I was so ridiculously pumped for the long-awaited arrival of the adaptation that I was every bit the giddy child of the film's target audience, with barely a trace of the pretentious, elitist bastard you see before you today. It could have consisted of nothing but Daniel Radcliffe eating pierogies on the Hogwarts roof and I likely still would have given it an A-.

Now comes Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, made by almost exactly the same people as the first installment, and much of the excitement -- mine, at least -- has worn off. Sure, it's still Harry Potter, and the best of the four novels as far as I'm concerned, but I knew it wouldn't be the revelation that the first one was, not to mention my growing irritation at the games that Rowling has been playing with her loyal fans (still no word on book 5).

It should be doubly impressive, to the extent that you care about what I think, that Chamber of Secrets earns the same grade as its predecessor, sans the inevitability. It's good, genuinely good, not just as a cultural sensation but as a movie all its own. Chris Columbus still works with a somewhat tediously utilitarian hand, but this time he develops a rhythm of his own, and it no longer feels like he was going down the list of scenes from the novel with a checklist. His work here is wondrous, and frightening, and fun.

Much like Rowling, Columbus assumes that you have either read the first book or seen the first movie and skimps on exposition, thankfully jumping directly into the story, which is probably the strongest of the series. Harry Potter (Daniel Radcliffe), languishing at the home of his hateful aunt and uncle Dursley, is warned by a Jar-Jar-like creature named Dobby not to return to Hogwarts for a terrible fate will await him if he tries it. Not one to be easily dissuaded, Harry does return -- in a flying car, no less -- and is reunited with his friends, the sheepish, red-haired Ron Weasley (Rupert Grint) and the precocious smart-aleck Hermione Granger (Emma Watson), as well as his enemies, namely the snotty Draco Malfoy (Tom Felton), this time joined by his nasty elitist father (Jason Isaacs).

Also returning are the professors, from the stern McGonagall (Maggie Smith), to the evil (?) Snape (Alan Rickman) to, of course, Headmaster Dumbledore (Richard Harris, in his final role). Hagrid (Robbie Coltrane), the friendly, giant gamekeeper is there as well; Hogwarts wouldn't be the same without him. Joining these folk is Gilderoy Lockhart (Kenneth Branagh), the new Defense Against the Dark Arts professor, a clueless heartthrob who thinks that the world is his fan club.

The gang is all here and, as such, the plot isn't really relevant. It involves a diary that talks back, a chamber of secrets, the Heir of Slytherin and a giant serpent. Significantly more notable, as last time, is the remarkable Harry Potter mythology, which isn't always entirely logical but is invariably rich, often breathtaking. There are tremendous amounts of imagination at work here -- the majority of it courtesy of the author, yes, but brought to the screen faithfully, with admirable craftsmanship, by Columbus.

There have been subtle improvements to the technical aspect of the series, most notably to the Quidditch scene, which looks smoother and less blue-screen than its Sorcerer's Stone counterpart. But more importantly, Chamber of Secrets plays like a movie, not as a screen version of a book. It has a pulse of its own, etching out an ebb and flow not necessarily separate but at least marginally distinctive from the source material. It earns the right to exist on its own.

But enough comparison -- it's counterproductive. This is a terrific adventure, with likeable characters who grow and change, who are real friends to each other and old friends to us. It's dark, often genuinely frightening, sometimes a touch gruesome, but all in fun. The A-List cast of adult British accents is again reliable; Alan Rickman is regrettably not given much to do, but new guy Kenneth Branagh provides amazing incidental comic relief. And the kids are natural and funny, though you can sometimes see leading man Radcliffe straining when he is forced to interact with CGI characters who obviously weren't with him on the set, and Rupert Grint seems incapable of letting go of one occasionally irritating facial expression.

The Harry Potter series is a modern miracle. I hate to regurgitate the rhetoric that has permeated nearly every editorial on the subject -- except, of course, those by the idiots who would take it away from our kids -- but Rowling's creation really is incomparable in the way it has captured the hearts and minds of humans of all ages, all over the world. It's no coincidence, and the film version of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets retains a good deal of the books' magic.