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We did the first film last week, so this week (albeit a little late) we'll do the second film.

 

As with the first film, CoS is extremely faithful to the book. I think it neatly displays the limits of complete fidelity, because CoS feels loooong as a movie, whereas as a book it's still relatively short. It just would not have been possible to take the PS-CoS approach with PoA onwards, as the books were too long at that point to have everything included.

I also think that CoS displays certain weaknesses in the plot which existed in the books too, but are more noticeable in the movie because of how long it feels: namely, plotlines which are complete dead ends. The two biggest examples are:

1. The polyjuice potion storyline, which results in... nothing? All it does is confirm Malfoy is not the heir.

2. The Aragog storyline, which results in... also nothing? All it does is tell us that spiders flee before the monster, but at this point we've never even heard of a basilisk so there's no way this can help the reader put the mystery together.

Both of these plotlines could be cut out with just a small impact on the overall storyline.

Meanwhile, the biggest drivers of the plot are pure accident, such as Harry stumbling across the diary after Ginny throws it away. CoS really is the weakest of the HP books.

 

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought the Aragog storyline (in the movie) let us know that a girl died in the bathroom? I can't remember which came first (the Riddle memory of someone dying or Aragog), but I'm pretty sure we didn't know about the bathroom yet.

 

Echoing Taure that CoS feels long. 2 hours and 40 minutes, yikes. And that's with them condensing some minor scenes (McGonagall lecturing about the Chamber, for instance).

Honestly this movie is very much made along the same lines as PS. Same complaints, same praise.

The Aragog thing is indeed unexplainable and a stupid red herring. I figure the real purpose plotlines like these serve, is to introduce concepts that would play much bigger roles in the plot of later books, like Azkaban or Polyjuice. That said they could've worked in much more elegantly.

 

CoS is my second least favorite book. As a movie, it's a bit better perhaps. It's about 30 minutes longer than the first movie (I think) and it feels it. It doesn't race a long at breakneck speed going from snippet to snippet, so we actually get a bit of a feel for the world (but still not really much).

One of the biggest issues I have with both this plot, and the previous, is that nearly everything that advances to plot is discovered out of pure dumb luck. Harry's just always at the right place at the right time, and if not, Hermione is there with the answer anyway.

I won't spend too much time on my issues with this movie. As always, there are infinite plotholes, and ton of things are left out from the books. One of the ones I noticed immediately was Ron's detention. Here, he doesn't recognize Riddle's name at all. It's not that important of a scene, but it's flavorful. It's like how in PoA we never really learn about the Marauders.

Well, starting at the beginning is one of my least favorite scenes. I don't care about Dobby at all (though despite that, I still get sad in movie 7). But, it leads in to the Burrow scene, which is excellent. Arthur Weasley is really great here.

Diagon Alley scene. Hermione repairs Harry’s glasses *again* with the same spell as she did in the first movie, yet Harry has zero recollection of that apparently. You’d also think one of the adults would cast a cleaning spell on any of the Weasleys or Harry., since their all just covered in dirt Also, damn Draco is way taller than the others at this point.

Flying car scene. It’s one of “those” scenes. The ones that only exists because people can’t communicate with each other. Like, just tell McGonagall about Dobby, or about not being able to get onto the platform, fuck. At least Ron makes the assumption that if they can't get back onto the platform then maybe their parents couldn't get out that way, which is a minor fix on the canon plothole

Pixie scene - Hermione freezing them all with one charm. In the books, she “freezes two with a clever Freezing Charm.” A bit of artistic license, I guess. If this kind of thing just happened once with Hermione, you could ignore it, but I'm pretty sure the final count of Hermione getting powered up through the entire series is somewhere between 20-30.

Quidditch scene. Ron has the notion to snipe the rogue bludger from the crowd. Like, random people shooting the play balls out of the sky from the stands is something he’d know not to do, lol. And of course, Hermione is the one who actually destroys it, and with “finite incantatum” of all things. In the book, one of the twins just wrestles it back into the box.

Also, just a random aside, I feel like it shouldn’t be that hard for someone to connect the dots to what Slytherin’s monster is. Maybe not a basilisk, but a “monster that only Slytherin’s heirs can control” can’t be that hard to narrow down to the fact that it’s a snake. Like, not long later we learn that Parselmouth is well known to be a Slytherin trait, and the snake is the symbol of their house.

I dislike how Plot Answers fall into Harry’s hands so fast. Harry gets the Diary and 2 minutes later sees the Tom Riddle scene. In the book it doesn’t feel so contrived.

Chamber scene is pretty epic. CGI held up well imo, though I watched the movie on my monitor, not my tv.

Final scene, Harry picked up the sword of Godric Gryffindor by the blade, lol. Also, Lucius Malfoy trying to cast the Killing Curse is meh. I think in an interview he just said the first spell that came to mind, but I’d have prefer a re-shoot of the scene to be honest. People who haven’t read the books wouldn't have known of the significance, but the spell isn’t shown until the 4th book. But the idea of this dude trying to AK HP outside of Dumbledore’s office is ridiculous.

Overall, I’d say this movie is an 8/10. In a vacuum, it's a fun little movie. I think the final battle scene is what gives it a point above the previous movie. The scene where Riddle says that Lord Voldemort is his past, present, and future still sends shivers down my spine.

Lastly, I wish they did the deathday party. I know a lot of shit gets omitted, but that one would have been cool. Not every scene has to just be plot setup.

 

I think the biggest negative of this move (and Philosopher's stone) aside from plot/pacing, is the acting of the main characters. Gint, Watson and Radcliffe were just hitting puberty. None of them were really great actors at that point (I would argue they still aren't great actors). It took them until the third movie to act without me cringing and it took until the very end of the series for me to call them good.

 

I'm late but just binged 2 and 3 so I'm gonna chime in.

Biggest complaint with this one is same as the first, the pace still feels too fast. It may be longer than the first one, but it feels like we move from scene to scene with unbearable speed and are just trying to hit all the highlights of the book ASAP. Good example of this is the Dursleys, where we have the Dobby scene, followed by the bars being installed, followed by the escape. You could very well be forgiven for thinking that these three scenes take place within 24 hours, but in the books Harry is locked away for weeks.

It's still a fun movie, but as others have said the acting isn't the best and the movie limits itself by adhering so faithfully to the books. Polyjuice potion could've been cut, but it would've lost us out on Malfoy's scene where he asks if Goyle knows how to read and that scene is precious. The face he makes perfectly conveys a sort of surprised acceptance that made me laugh out loud. That doesn't happen too much.

@Anarchy: Ron does recognize the name from his detention actually, you must've missed it somehow. We just don't see the trophy (which I think we do in the book?).