As you may well know, when a movie is made from a book, I try my best to avoid comparing them to each other. More often than not, the movie version of the story blows goats, and the book version is hailed as the better of the two. I've found this philosophy to be almost universally applicable, except for the recent films Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter & the Sorcerer's Stone. Even when a conversion works out, a lot of the sequels to great book-movie conversions fall flat on their ass. The bad odds notwithstanding, it should still come as no surprise that the second Harry Potter trip to the big screen is just as grand as the first.
I can honestly say I had forgotten how Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone had ended. I figured that the kids ended up staying at Hogwarts Academy, not returning home for "the summer." Therefore, you can imagine my consternation when the second film began in the same fashion as the first. While looking on with a furrowed brow, I at first decided it was just a flashback, or a recap of sorts. I held that opinion for about 5 minutes-- until Dobby the Warcraft Peon showed up.
Dobby is this silly little house goblin who dresses in rags and only speaks in the third person. Yes, that means he says "Dobby wants" instead of "I want." ALL THE TIME. He also has a penchant for referring to people by their full name each and every time he needs to say "you," "him" or "he", even when he's staring them face to face! Given these traits, I just couldn't help but label Dobby as the Jar Jar Binks of the year. (By the way, if the real Jar Jar showed up again in Episode 2, I wouldn't know, because I refuse to see that shitpot excuse for a movie). He's got most of the Jar Jar qualities down pat-- he's computer animated, he's gangly, he's ugly as all sin, he's got big freakin' eyes, and he won't shut the hell up. The only real difference between Jar Jar Binks and Dobby is that listening to one of them made me want to hammer 10-inch railroad spikes into my ears, scrambling my ruptured bleeding eardrums in a desperate attempt to shut out the source of that horrible grating sound............... and the other one's Dobby. Yeah, Jar Jar's that awful. But wait. Dobby's no saint either. I'm almost convinced that if an extremely disturbed individual with mass depression had entered the theater prior to Dobby's appearance, even if only to gleam a little shred of happiness out of Harry Potter's magical escapades, Dobby's sinking monologue on his home life and pathetic existence would undoubtedly cause that person to reach up over the back of his seat and slice his wrists on a piece of jagged plastic sticking out of the seatback. Seriously, is that not a little extreme for a kids' movie?
The majority of the film takes place at Hogwarts, where the little warlocks-to-be are engaged in the usual things-- classes, sports, and breaking every rule the educational establishment possesses. Oh, those silly kids, they so crazy. Does it seem a little strange to anybody that all Harry and his accomplices seem to do with the majority of their time is break rules? Does it seem any stranger that if not for their rule breaking, Hogwarts and the rest of the whole freakin' universe would be consumed by some unspeakable evil? I guess precocity has its merits. It's just too bad that when you break rules in real life, you don't get to save the world; you get a pair of shiny new handcuffs and a nice rectal massage from "Tiny" in the cell next-door.
Although most of the movie takes place in the Academy, there are two little stretches that occur outdoors. The first is when Harry and Co. go traipsing through a forest so fucking dark, it's called the Dark Forest. And that's not all, this Dark Forest also has ten whole civilizations of gigantic spiders living in it. Of course, everyone is afraid but Harry. Harry's never afraid. Even when in the midst of close to THREE BAZILLION spiders, when common sense tells you to hightail it the fuck out of there or get served as dinner, Harry's not afraid. As an adult, this amused me, given that most kids Harry's age in today's world would be off smoking a joint at the first sight of a larger-than-normal spider. Oh well, kids in theaters don't give a crap. To be young and carefree again, sigh.
The second stretch of outdoor antics involves a game of Quiddich, which just HAD be included in the second movie, lest some petulant child not have the needed excuse to entreat mommy and daddy to buy him a flying broom. Taking into consideration how cool the Quiddich matches were in the first film, I sincerely hoped there would be only a minor reference to the game in Chamber of Secrets, rather than a whole other match. Think of it in terms of the Austin Powers movies. That series is an absolute pro at taking great jokes and scenes from the first movie and mercilessly ramming them into your eyes and ears the first, second, and subsequent times a sequel is made. I guess it has to do with "not giving out too much of a great thing." I can say for certain that Quiddich was much more exciting the first time around. Suffice it to say, I spent those 15 minutes of Chamber of Secrets catching up on some much-needed sleep. After all, I had to attend the late late showing of Chamber of Secrets thanks to the raving mob of Harry Potter lunatics that showed up to sell out the theaters during normal hours. ARGH.
Oh wait, did I mention sleep? Well, that would have been impossible seeing how the sound level of the movie was so fucking high, my vibrating bladder just about drenched the middle four rows of the theater. I also saw ripples in my vision from the waves forming in the fluid of myright eyeball. What possesses theaters to turn the sound up so friggin' high?? At one point near the end of the film, the sound grew so loud I nearly drove all 28 of my teeth completely into the gums from jaw clenching pressure alone! If I really wanted to lose my hearing, I could save myself $7.25 and just let Michael J. Fox clean my ears with a Q-Tip.
Other than a few brushes with deafness, I thoroughly enjoyed myself watching this movie. I've heard that the third book is one of the best in the Harry Potter series, and I eagerly look forward to another great performance on film. |
