Furthermore, he’s saddled with ripe dialogue like: “The invisibility booster must be faulty!” Directed to squeak and squeal for comic effect in action scenes, it actually foregoes the actor’s natural comic timing and instead makes the character insufferable to watch. On the topic of Ronald, Rupert Grint’s performance sums up so much of what is misjudged in this installment.
Factions of book fans were convinced that the name of wand-making shop Ollivander’s was code for either “Ronald lives” or “Ronald’s evil.” Anagrams are a dangerous route to take, because it gets fans looking for patterns that are not there. Tom Marvolo Riddle, Voldemort’s real name, was nearly reverse engineered by Rowling from “I Am Lord Voldemort,” something that Columbus literally spells out in flaming letters on the screen. Then again, it’s no less sudden when the baddy turns out to be Lord Voldemort, hiding under an anagram. At the same time, few of the Harry Potterfilms are more successful in preserving the complexities of the Christie-esque mystery story that Rowling weaves into her novels. Detours spring up left, right and center, tenuously linked from scene to scene in an attempt to hold the abrupt tonal shifts as part of one story.Īt one hundred and sixty-one minutes, this film is the longest of the series, based on the two hundred and fifty-six pages of JK Rowling’s novel. Read more: Harry Potter Streaming Guide - Where to Stream OnlineĪs far as the B plots of the film are concerned, the usual blind reverence to the source material is present and correct. The method of his return through his 16-year-old self’s diary becomes intrinsically important towards the end of the series, but that’s a link for another time.
If you haven’t guessed, that detour fills in for their suspicion of Snape in the first film and, once again, it turns out Lord Voldemort is the root of the trouble. That makes Draco the prime suspect as the heir of Slytherin, as far as our trio of amateur wizarding sleuths are concerned. The two of them are condescending and cruel, and their family’s been pure-blood Slytherins for centuries. This development gives a nastier edge to schoolyard bully Draco Malfoy, played by Tom Felton, and his imperious father, Lucius, played by Jason Isaacs. Read more: Fantastic Beasts 3 - Everything We Know In wizarding genealogy, having two wizarding parents, who only have magical heritage, makes you “pure-blood.” However, it’s also possible to come into magical power even if your parents are non-magical Muggles, which makes you “Muggle-born.” “Half-bloods,” which come up later in the series, are the result of a union between a pure-blood and either a Muggle-born or a Muggle. Still, this one delves into Hogwarts history and introduces one of the series’ central themes, that of prejudice. It’s a vagary of the film series, that it never quite explains the wisdom of siphoning off a quarter of the school’s students into a house with a reputation for turning out evil wizards. Maggie Smith’s Professor McGonagall always mentions Slytherin last when listing the school houses, and with such an inflection that she might as well have said “Evil House” instead. Here’s a story that lends itself to arguments about the logic of keeping Slytherin open at Hogwarts. And now the horror from within the chamber is loose in the castle, trying to kill off students. According to a message daubed in blood, the Chamber of Secrets has been opened by the heir of Hogwarts co-founder, Salazar Slytherin. It’s not long into the school year, however, when that terrible evil rears its head. Read more: Looking Back on Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone Via flying Ford Anglia, Harry is soon rescued from his relatives by the Weasleys. But uh-oh! A house-elf called Dobby materializes in Harry’s bedroom! Sitcom antics aside, Dobby is here to get the story going, by insisting that Harry doesn’t return to Hogwarts for his second year, lest he fall prey to a terrible evil.