Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets

The second of the four Harry Potter movies we watched together so far, I must say that up to now, I find this the best one of the lot.

It`s not because of immense special effects, whom still `feel` a bit low budgetted at times, nor the `stiff` acting of the three young main wizards yet, but the whole concept of the film.

In this movie (which was also the last one of the Dumbledore`s original actor, who passed away shortly afterwards), there is a certain Who Dunnit? element, and that makes it for me stand out from the other ones I watched so far. 

Where in the other films, the plot twist (I haven`t read the books yet, I just started the first one this morning) can more or less be deducted within the first half hour, this one is, well, different.  Something is amiss at Hogwarts as people start to turn up pertrified and a message is shown that the Chamber of Secrets is openened.  This is a dangerous place, where the wizard elite of the school have been searching for for years (okay, so nobody thought of checking the actual toilet then... don`t wizards take a piss???) and houses an evil secret.

More is learned from this place through a diary found by Ginny Weasley, the diary of Tom Riddle.  He was a student at the school decennia ago, and through flashbacks we learn he was expelled because he wanted to know more then was good for him and accused Hagrid of opening the Chamber for his spider friend Aragog.

While the charlatan wizard Lockhart is helping Harry out, but in truth just wants them to discover the chamber to improve his own (made up and stolen) fame, they indeed do discover the room and the dark secret it harbours.  In it, they not only discover the evil Basilisk which Harry only manages to overcome with the help of the most unlikely allies: Fawkes the Phoenix, The Sorting Hat and the Sword of Griffondor, but he also learns that Tom Riddle was an anagram for "I am Lord Voldemort" as the former student reappears and wants to drain the essence from Harry to be reborn.

It`s this dark twist and rather unexpected ending of the link between Tom Riddle and Voldemort that made it for so far the most enjoyable of the movies, and has made me so far becoming more of a liker of the series then the other three films combined...