Harry
Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (film)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets is a 2002
fantasy film directed by Chris Columbus and distributed by Warner Bros.
Pictures. It is based on the novel of the same name by J. K. Rowling. The film
is a sequel to the 2001 film Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone and the
second instalment in the Harry Potter film series. It was written by Steve
Kloves and produced by David Heyman. Its story follows Harry Potter's second
year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry as the Heir of Salazar
Slytherin opens the Chamber of Secrets, unleashing a monster that petrifies the
school's denizens. The film stars Daniel Radcliffe as Harry Potter, with Rupert
Grint as Ron Weasley, and Emma Watson as Hermione Granger and is also the last
film to feature Richard Harrisas Professor Albus Dumbledore, due to his death
that same year.
The film was released in theatres in the United
Kingdom and the United States on 15 November 2002. It became a critical and commercial
success, grossing $879 million at the box office worldwide. It was the second
highest grossing film of 2002 behind The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers. The
movie was nominated for many awards including the BAFTA Award for Best
Production Design, Best Sound, and Best Special Visual Effects. It was followed
by six sequels, beginning with Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban in 2004
and ending with Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - Part 2 in 2011, nearly
ten years after the first film's release.
Plot
Harry Potter spends the summer with The Dursleys
without receiving letters from his Hogwarts friends. In his room, Harry meets
Dobby, a house-elf, who warns him of a peril that will take shape if he returns
to Hogwarts, and reveals he intercepted his friends' letters, and destroys a
cake. The Dursleys lock Harry up, but Ron, Fred and George Weasley rescue him
in their father's flying car.
While purchasing school supplies, Harry and the
Weasley family encounter Rubeus Hagrid and Hermione Granger, and they attend a
book-signing by celebrity wizard Gilderoy Lockhart, who announces that he will
be the new Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher. During a small confrontation
with Draco Malfoy, Harry meets his father, Lucius, who slips a book in Ginny
Weasley's belongings. When Harry and Ron are blocked from entering Platform
Nine and Three-Quarters, they fly to Hogwarts in the flying car, crashing into
the Whomping Willow upon arrival. Ron's wand is damaged, and the car ejects
them before driving off. Both boys narrowly avoid expulsion when Professor
McGonagall gives them detention.
While serving detention with Lockhart, Harry hears
strange voices and later finds caretaker Argus Filch's cat, Mrs. Norris,
petrified, along with a message written in blood announcing the "Chamber
of Secrets has been opened". McGonagall explains that one of Hogwarts'
founders, Salazar Slytherin, supposedly constructed a secret Chamber and placed
a monster that only his Heir can control inside it, to purge the school of
impure-blooded wizards and witches. Harry and Ron suspect Malfoy is the Heir,
so Hermione suggests that they question him while disguised using polyjuice potion.
They utilize a disused bathroom haunted by a ghost, Moaning Myrtle, as their
makeshift laboratory to brew the potion.
When Harry communicates with a snake, the school
believes he is the Heir. On Christmas Day, Harry and Ron learn that Malfoy is
not the Heir, but he mentions that a girl died when the Chamber was last opened
fifty years ago. Harry finds an enchanted diary, owned by a former student
named Tom Marvolo Riddle, which shows him a flashback to fifty years before,
where Riddle accused Hagrid, then a student, of opening the Chamber. When the
diary is stolen and Hermione is petrified, Harry and Ron question Hagrid.
Professor Dumbledore, Cornelius Fudge, and Lucius Malfoy, come to take Hagrid
to Azkaban, but he discreetly tells the boys to "follow the spiders".
In the Forbidden Forest, Harry and Ron meet Hagrid's giant pet spider Aragog,
who tells them that Hagrid was innocent and provides them with a small clue
about the Chamber's resident monster. Aragog then sets his colony of
Acromantula on the boys, but the now-wild flying car saves them.
A book page in Hermione's hand identifies the
monster as a basilisk, a giant serpent that instantly kills those that make
direct eye contact with it; the petrified victims only saw it indirectly. The
school staff learn that Ginny was taken into the Chamber, and convince Lockhart
to save her. Harry and Ron find Lockhart, exposed as a fraud, planning to flee;
knowing Myrtle was the girl the Basilisk killed, they take him to her bathroom
and find the Chamber's entrance. Once inside, Lockhart uses Ron's damaged wand
against them, but it backfires, wiping his memory, and causes a cave-in.
Harry enters the Chamber alone and finds Ginny
unconscious, guarded by Tom Riddle. Riddle reveals that he used the diary to
manipulate Ginny and reopen the Chamber. When Riddle creates the anagram for
his future new identity, "I am Lord Voldemort" from his full name,
Harry realises that Riddle himself is Slytherin's heir and Voldemort was only a
pseudonym. After Harry expresses support for Dumbledore, Dumbledore's Fawkes
flies in with the Sorting Hat, and Riddle summons the Basilisk. Fawkes blinds
the Basilisk, and the Sorting Hat eventually produces a sword with which Harry
battles and slays the Basilisk, but he is injured by its fangs.
Harry defeats Riddle and revives Ginny by stabbing
the diary with a basilisk fang. Fawkes's tears heal him, and he returns to
Hogwarts with his friends and a baffled Lockhart. Dumbledore praises them and
orders for Hagrid's release. Dumbledore shows Harry the sword he wielded was
Godric Gryffindor's own sword, and says he is different from Voldemort, because
he chose Gryffindor House instead of Slytherin House. Harry accuses Lucius,
Dobby's master, of planting the diary in Ginny's cauldron and tricks him into
freeing Dobby. The Basilisk's victims are healed, Hermione reunites with Harry
and Ron, and Hagrid returns.
In a post-credits scene, Lockhart has published a new
autobiography, "Who Am I?"
