The second Harry Potter movie starts off with young wizard Harry Potter (Daniel Radcliffe) getting prepared for his second year at the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry - where he will be able to meet his friends, Ron Weasley (Rupert Grint) and Hermoine Granger (Emma Watson) again.  But a house-elf named Dobby appears in Harry's room and warns him not to go to Hogwarts - because terrible things are going to happen!  Harry is puzzled, but of course he returns to the school.

This is when the mystery starts - students at Hogwarts start turning up "petrified" (a kind of paralysed, frozen state), and this could have something to do with a "Chamber of Secrets" which is rumoured to exist there.  This Chamber is supposed to hold some sort of monster which can only be controlled by a descendant of Slytherin (one of the founders of the school).  When these strange incidents take place, Harry and his friends are determined to find out what exactly is going on and solve the mystery of the Chamber of Secrets.  For if the culprit is not found soon, the school itself may close down!

I have not read any of the Harry Potter books, and when I watched the first Harry Potter movie I liked all the characters and the entire fantasy setting.  This second movie, I liked even more because it was an involving mystery, and not only that, it had a much darker, spookier tone than the first movie (this is what appealed to me the most).  In addition to the interesting story and the characters (uniformly fine acting, all the actors suited their roles very well), the movie also has some amazing visuals (the look and feel of the movie, the costumes, sets, and of course the visual effects are all excellent) and a lot of imagination!

Perhaps the only (minor) criticism I have of this movie is the resolution at the end - I was expecting something more sinister after all the build-up.  (Though, for a movie that is primarly intended for an audience of children, I thought the final confrontation was quite strong stuff!)  Some reviews I've read say that the movie goes on for too long - well, at more than two and a half hours, it IS a long movie, but I wasn't really bothered by it that much.  Harry Potter fans will absolutely not mind at all I think (heh) and in fact, if you like movies with imagination and fantasy, you will like Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets.  I certainly did and I look forward to seeing the next entry in the series.

Running Time: 161 minutes | Country: US | Genre: Fantasy/Mystery