Let me start by saying this: I am a huge Harry Potter fan. Not as huge as some people I know, but pretty big nonetheless. Unlike some other fans, though, I eagerly await each movie, anxious for the chance to see Harry and his world come to cinematic life before my eyes. While I have managed to find things I dislike about both movies to date, overall I'm very pleased with the way they turned out.

The magic J.K. Rowling has wrought on the world with the introduction of Harry and his friends—and enemies—is incomparable. This point was driven home to me about a week or so after Chamber of Secrets came out, when my four-year-old nephew called me to announce two very important things: he's going to be a big brother, and he got the Chamber of Secrets game for the X-Box. It was easy to tell which one he was more excited about, but eventually he or Dad will beat the game, and he can turn his limited attention span to pondering the idea of a sibling.

While I am also excited about the prospect of a new kid in the family that I don't actually have any responsibility for (except toy purchases, of course), I've gotta go with the little guy on this one. Harry was a little more exciting, and will continue to be until August or so. (Insert apology to brother and sister-in-law here, if they happen to read this, and a fervent promise not to ever buy this one a toy drum set.)

But enough about that. Let's get to the movie.

Chamber of Secrets is, to put it most simply, just more of what you got in The Sorcerer's Stone. What I have so far enjoyed about the Harry Potter movies is the fact that, while it may not be completely true to the book, the film version is, for the most part, taken directly from the text. Sure, some smaller things that are often fan favorites get left out. But Chamber of Secrets is two-and-a-half hours as it is, and I don't know many grownups who want to sit in a movie theater for that long.

Daniel Radcliffe as Harry is tough to call. He mostly looks the part (if you're really picky), but I think he could maybe use an acting lesson or two. He's got potential, aside from the problems every live actor seems to have when conversing with a CGI character, and I find him just so utterly likable that I can't say anything too bad about him. I've been told that a casting change may be in the works before Prisoner of Azkaban makes it to the screen, but anybody with a grudge and a computer can start a rumor.

Rupert Grint and Emma Watson as Ron and Hermione are, to me, the embodiment of the characters I first began to love the second they were introduced, as is Tom Felton in the role of Draco Malfoy. Malfoy is not a likeable character, and I'm guessing he never will be, but sneering well is difficult under the best circumstances, and he deserves points for managing to do it constantly.

The addition of Kenneth Branagh as the rather insufferable Gilderoy Lockhart seemed to me, at first, to be a little overdone. But once I saw him on the screen, it couldn't have been more perfect. I had been dreading all of the interaction with Lockhart that may have made it to the movie, but it turned out that I was almost disappointed to see how little the character was utilized. Of course, translating a book into a worthwhile movie is dicey at best, and unfortunately, many subplots get tossed in the can along the way. The Harry Potter series, while appealing to all ages, is intended for children, and no child I know can really sit still for a movie longer than an hour and a half, let alone the two and a half Chamber of Secrets stretched into. But I would dearly have loved to see the Valentine's Day dwarfs that were included in the book, and Hermione's crush on the Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher might have rounded out her character a bit.

Speaking of crushes, and things being taken out of the book in its journey to the screen—poor Ginny. Ginny's near-paralyzing crush on Harry was given very little play in the film, despite its relative importance in the rest of the plot. It seems that the entire Weasley family gets much less screen time than they should, and since Ron is undeniably my favorite character, I am outraged on his fictional behalf. I also would have loved to see Arthur Weasley and Lucius Malfoy have a good old-fashioned brawl in the middle of the bookstore the way they did in the book, but I suppose the scene worked as well without it.

My final nitpick, which actually does have a point (hard to believe, isn't it?), is this. The book has clues as to the identity of the Heir of Slytherin and the opener of the Chamber of Secrets, although they are veiled, uncertain and definitely not obvious to the juvenile audience the series is primarily aimed at. It appears that at least one of these clues almost made it to the final cut: Hagrid wasn't walking around with dead chickens just to amuse himself.

But for people I know who have never read the series, the culprit was a complete surprise. That, to me, is the biggest failing of Chamber of Secrets. Any good mystery should provide the audience with clues that, if followed and thought through correctly, can make the watcher feel as if they are at least as smart as the character that finally solves the riddle. Chamber of Secrets denied its audience that small triumph by hiding a thousand small textual hints that wouldn't translate well to film, or were cut for time constraints, or any other reason. Oh, sure, there are still a few small tidbits here or there, but only if one is already looking for them do they seem obvious.

In total, despite all the mud I've slung, I liked it. I like it when any book I'm a fan of becomes a movie, even the bad ones. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets has within it not only a strong hero with his own faults, though we don't get to see many of those on screen, it also brings with it that sense of enchantment that children so desperately desire. I'm closer to thirty now than I am to twenty, and even I crave a little bit of that magic world we glimpse when we follow the adventures of our friends at Hogwarts.

So, if only for the momentary displacement of our mundane, troublesome real world, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets gets four asterisks, or cups of coffee, or doors, or whatever my accommodating, ever-supportive, ever-patient editor chooses. (Okay, so I'm blatantly sucking up, but it's my way of apologizing rather publicly for being a little late.) [Editor's Note: Apology not needed, and it's still doors. : -) —dtc]

There is nothing like the expression on a child's face when, even just for a moment, they can believe that there truly is magic in the world, and the way my nephew's face lights up when he talks about Harry is the best review in the world.