Harry Potter & The Chamber of Secrets (2002)

Film: Harry Potter & The Chamber of Secrets
Release: 2002, Theatrical
Starring: Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson, Rupert Grint
Directed by: Chris Columbus
Previous in the series: Harry Potter & The Sorcerer's stone
Next in the Series: Harry Potter & The Prisoner of Azkaban
IMDB page: Link opens in a new window
Description: Before his return to Hogwarts for his second school year, Harry Potter is visited by the house elf Dobby who warns him not to return for the sake of his own safety.

Hans' thoughts:

Once again we're brought into the magical world of Harry Potter, this time giving us a bit more insight into normal day-to-day wizard life. While "Sorcerer's Stone" was very much about being introduced to the wizard society and had a very adventurous feel to it, Chamber of Secrets is the first of the Potter stories to anchor onto the horror aspect of the series. Something that would be a defining feature for the movies to come. As far as sequels do, this movie does exactly what a movie should do. It has more locations, more characters, higher stakes and a larger than life story. Chamber of Secrets is just a much bigger movie overall. Now, this movie does have some aspects of which it is lesser than Sorcerer's Stone. First off, the shots are not nearly as ambitious as the former movie, Indeed it straight up copies the famous shot from Alien. The movie also has a lot more of a cartoony feel to it. It plays much more on the comedy of the book, which is kinda weird considering the high potential for horror this particular story has.

However, to it's credit the comedy kind of works out as a saving grace. As the movies tone manages to keep the creepiness abound but without making it completely dull - which I imagine a full-on childrens horror story could have done. As such it becomes more of an adventure story. I have to admit, I absolutely adore the sets of this movie. While the actual CGI has aged a bit worse than in Sorcerer's, the sets are as great as ever. From the look of the Weasley household, to the staircase leading up to Professor Dumbledore's office. The actual Chamber of Secrets is actually very creepy, though a bit of a letdown after all the build up. I mean hey, the title of the thing is "Chamber of Secrets" so I didn't expect it to be so.. empty. However, as it stands the climax is exciting enough to make it unnoticeable. The villains of the movie is also a lot more interesting, Lucius Malfoy making for a very real threat. We also get some backstory for He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named. In all seriousness, if we're only going by the movies this was needed - badly! He was barely established in Sorcerer's. 

As for the acting, I can't feel the difference when it comes to the child actors. They're still kind of stumbling through it, but good enough that it doesn't take you out of the experience. The addition of Kenneth Branagh is a fun change though, He makes for a fun character. This is the movie of the series I've seen the most, as this is the one that came out when my Harry Potter fandom was at it's peak. As such, this remains to this day my absolute favorite - as opposed to the ones coming up. But we'll talk about those when we get to them.

Harry Potter & The Sorcerer's Stone (2001)

I personally think this particular poster is
some of artist Drew Struzan's finest work

Film: Harry Potter & The Sorcerer's Stone
Alternate Title: Harry Potter & The Philosopher's Stone (original British book-title)
Alternate Versions: Theatrical/Ultimate
Release: 2001, Theatrical
Starring: Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson, Rupert Grint
Directed by: Chris Columbus
Next in the series: Harry Potter & The Chamber of Secrets
IMDB page: Link opens in a new window
Description: Harry Potter lives under the stairs in the house of his extended family, The Dursleys. Being an unwanted houseguest most of his life, everything changes when an extreme amount of strange letters arrive at the household.

Hans' thoughts:

Harry Potter as a franchise, is quite the rarity. Nevermind the actual quality of the individual works in the series (movies, books or otherwise). No, what makes Harry Potter special is that for a few years, everyone was talking about fantasy. For whatever reason, right there and then in the early 2000's tons of fantasy stories was being adapted to movie form. This includes series like Narnia and The Golden Compass. I like to think that this is due to the success of this movie, and the other major fantasy movie coming out that year - The Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring. Suddenly out of nowhere, two of the biggest fantasy book series get movie adaptations the same year and they both completely wrecked the notions of how niche-genres do at the box office. Suddenly, geekdom took over Hollywood.

Other than that, imagine how risky it must've been to actually pour money into this movie. Here you've got Warner Bros., a major movie-making company since the birth of Hollywood pouring a severe amount money into what? An up-and-coming British children's' book series starring mostly child or somewhat unknown actors and with a high need for special effects! They really took a risk with this, popular books or no we're talking about a movie that needs to believably feature: monsters, ghosts and flying broomsticks amongst other things. Meaning a lot of the budget was poured into the special effects I imagine. You've also got some pretty big names attached to it (Maggie Smith, John Hurt, Alan Rickman). Whoever pitched this movie must've had a tongue made of solid silver.

That's great and all, but how does it hold up today? Well, not too shabby I'd say. With regards to acting, I'm actually impressed with how well some of the child actors did - considering that for most of them, this was their debut. The special effects are still kind of nice to look at, while some of it tends to look a little bit dated (a certain beast in a certain bathroom springs to mind) I have to say I had a hard time telling how old is was at times. The best example of a scene that's aged really well is what I will simply refer to as "The Chess Scene" where the animation was top notch. The movie also presents some stunning shots, the most iconic is probably the rowboats with lanterns crossing the lake in the dark, with the screen panning up to reveal the dimly lit castle of Hogwarts.

Now, I do have some gripes with this movie. While some of it's problems can be explained with "It's a childrens story" I have to point out the flaw of the pacing. The most of the movie is actually paced quite well, you have Harry exploring the wizards alternate world and you get to see how detailed the universe is. From it's own fully realized sport down to what kind of candy is available on a wizards train-ride is in this movie. However, I could have done with some more screen time for some of the teacher characters of the movie. The book did a much better job of setting up the twist at the end of the movie and we could overall just have done with more scenes of the characters going to class. As it stands though, I realize that children probably couldn't have sat through how much longer the movie would have had to be to address that.

As far as kids movies go, this sits in the upper-half of the spectrum. It managed to capture the imagination of millions of children worldwide and turn a whole generation of gamers and TV-slaves into readers, at least for a little while. The movie manages to be enjoyable to adults as well, and I am glad I decided to revisit it.

Ghost Rider (2007)

Film: Ghost Rider
Release: 2007, theatrical
Starring: Nicolas Cage, Eva Mendes, James Fonda
Directed by: Mark Steven Johnson
Alternate versions: Theatrical/Extended
IMDB page: Link opens in a new window
Description: The young stunt biker Johnny Blaze, makes a deal with a stranger when he finds out his father may be dying of cancer.

Hans' thoughts:

This is one of those "notorious" superhero movies. One that got a really bad rap when it came out and was then completely forgotten shartly thereafter. Personally, I've found myself enjoying this movie in spite of it's many faults. Nicolas Cage is the main reason for that. He's one of those actors that seems like he'll take any acting job he can and he always does his best. This has of course resulted in him being in some very infamous movies, and critics are never really that kind to the guy. To me it's apparent that he does his job and he does it well, but he'll probably not be an actor that goes down in history and will be remembered as more as a fan favorite. The other actors also seem like they really do what they can with what they've been given - except for James Fonda who kinda seems.. bored. I guess he had hoped for an action scene.The delivery of some lines is also very awkward to say the least, here I'm especially noticing the actor playing the character Blackheart - Wes Bentley. Visually, this movie has some really great moments, a star example when Mephistopheles meets Young Johnny Blaze in the fair tent for the first time, a thunderstorm has a lightning strike that lits up the tent and the shadow of Mephistopheles is a crooked demonic figure. The special effects around the title character are the best of the movie, taking cues from 80 Heavy Metal culture like the comic book version most likely did. There are also some plotholes here and there, at some point in the movie the main character rides through the desert as the Ghost Rider and it is a visually awesome scene, however next we see him he has for unexplained reasons changed back into human form. It slows down the movie and seems awkward and I suspect this was not in the theatrical version of the film. All in all, I enjoyed this movie. It does however, has a lot of flaws. If you can look past the plethora of flaws there should at the very least be idle entertainment for even non-comic book fans.

Reptilicus (1961)

Film: Reptilicus
Release: 1961, theatrical
Starring: Carl Ottesen, Dirch Passer, Bent Mejding
Directed by: Sidney W. Pink
Alternate versions: Danish cut/American cut
IMDB page: Link opens in a new window
Description: After a strange find during an underground drilling, a monster is revived and goes on a rampage through Northwestern Europe, finally attacking Copenhagen - the capitol of Denmark.

Hans' thoughts:

This movie is, quite literally, a freak of nature. Throughout my life, I have come to know my homecountry's cinematic history as one filled with comedies and dramas. Some better than others. Sure, there has been the single supernatural movie here and there but nothing too mindgoggling. Denmark is known for making movies like Festen and Anti-Christ. Imagine my surprise when I then found this gem among the 60's movies. Reptilicus is a monster-movie. Not a very well-done one, but never the less a monster-movie. It was most likely done to live up to the giant monster competition from bigger movie countries like America and Japan who at that time had turned out such classics as the Godzilla franchise and the King Kong movies. The version I'm reviewing is the Danish version. First off because I don't think I would be able to track down the American cut if I wanted to and second off because I'm a native Dane. So why wouldn't I watch the Danish cut? The Danish cut of this movie is not taken quite as serious as I imagine the American version is. In the Danish version, the creators of he movie has decided to cater a lot to the Danish audience with the great comedian Dirch Passer. He's given a lot more comedic scenes in this one, and he's even been given a whole song "'Tilicus" which is apparently cut from the American version - I can see why. The song slows down the movie exponentially, is sung to a group of kids and was probably put in to make the movie more family friendly. At the time, no Danish movie creator really dared making a movie without at least attempting to get Dirch Passer to appear in the movie. This resulted in a slew of comedic movies in that era where some of them were probably intended to be serious originally. The Danish movie also has a beach scene which shows quite a bit of skin, I've heard American critics call it soft core pornography - it isn't. The movie in and of itself is a nice experiment. It's nice to see Danish filmmakers taking a chance to do something OTHER than farmhouse dramas or military comedies which were a common sight in this era. Unfortunately, it is also easy to see why something this ambitious has not been tried since, the low budget of the movie (the monster itself is a rubber marionette) really serves to pull down the experience. However, if you can look past the budget, and engage in the universe this movie presents there are good times to be had. Call it a challenge in suspension of disbelief.