Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets Critic Reviews

Brimming with invention and new ideas, and its Hogwarts School seems to expand and deepen before our very eyes into a world large enough to conceal unguessable secrets -- What a glorious movie.Read the full review

And among the things this ''HP'' does very well indeed is deepen the darker, more frightening atmosphere for audiences of all ages already familiar with the intricacies of the ''Potter'' landscape. (This is as it should be: Harry's story is supposed to get darker.)Read the full review

Darker and more dramatic, this account of Harry's troubled second year at Hogwarts may be a bit overlong and unmodulated in pacing, but it possesses a confidence and intermittent flair that begin to give it a life of its own apart of the literary franchise, something the initial picture never achieved.Read the full review

Has its flaws, but it's better, as well as darker, than the first. It's also longer, by nine minutes, but hold that protest to the Kidney Foundation; the time flies, albeit in fits and starts, like players on a Quidditch field.Read the full review

Moves the franchise even closer to Indiana Jones territory, with bloodcurdling action scenes and a passel of climactic computer-generated slime beasties unparalleled in their potential ability to -- I'm quoting from both book and film here -- '' rip, tear, rend, kill. ''Read the full review

A fun, fantastic adventure, but, watching it, I had the sense that it could have been even better than it is. I was diverted and entertained, but never truly absorbed.Read the full review

Nothing from the book is left to wither away. That should please the vast reading audience that'll watch the movie.Read the full review

Scenes that should have been cut are included, so as not to disappoint anyone. What could have been a small, sweet and genuinely scary film is instead a full hour too long and many millions too fat.Read the full review

By the end, instead of feeling stirred to a high pitch of anxiety and excitement, you may feel battered and worn down. But not, in the end, too terribly disappointed.Read the full review