The Worst Harry Potter Movie, According To IMDb

If you ask the average Potterhead what their favorite "Harry Potter" movie is, there's a decent chance they'll say "Prisoner of Azkaban." That's the Alfonso Cuaron-directed one where the cinematography's amazing and everyone's hair looks their best. (In /Film's official ranking of the series, "Azkaban" reigns supreme.) If you ask them about their least favorite "Potter" movie, they might say "Goblet of Fire." That's the one that tries and fails to cram as much of the 700+ page source material into a single movie, plus it's the one where nobody got a haircut. 

If not "Goblet of Fire," fans might pick "Half-Blood Prince," the movie that plays it fast and loose with its source material. They also might pick "Deathly Hallows: Part 1," accusing it of feeling like half a story. But according to IMDb at least, there's one clear reigning loser amongst the "Harry Potter" films, and that's the second one: "Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets." 

With a 7.4 out of 10 rating, "Chamber of Secrets" is significantly below the series' high of "Deathly Hallows: Part 2" (rated 8.1). So, why is poor "Chamber of Secrets" so unpopular? Well, it's complicated. Let us explain.

"Chamber of Secrets," which is adapting a 300-paged book, is a full 2 hours and 41 minutes long. It's the longest in the series, which feels strange considering that later, shorter "Potter" movies were adapting books that were more than double the size. One reason for this is that these first two movies were basically the load-bearing installments of the franchise; they established the tone and a ton of worldbuilding, explaining everything viewers needed to know so that the later movies wouldn't have to. The unfortunate result is that the pacing in "Chamber of Secrets" feels a bit sluggish. 

What makes "Chamber of Secrets" worse is that it doesn't have the fresh new feel of the first movie. The "Harry Potter" series grows darker, more mature, and more ambitious as it goes on, but it's not really until "Prisoner of Azkaban" that this trend becomes clear. "Chamber of Secrets" feels like it's on the same level as "Sorcerer's Stone," whereas "Azkaban" is an undeniable step up. There's also the issue that composer John Williams wasn't as involved in the score for this movie, although he'd return triumphantly in "Azkaban." The soundtrack for "Chamber of Secrets" is notably worse than the soundtracks immediately before and after it. 

This movie also features Dobby (voiced by Toby Jones), one of the most controversial characters in the series. Often compared to Jar Jar Binks from "Star Wars," Dobby tests the audience's patience with his constant meddling and fretting. He sure doesn't help with the complaints about the movie's length; when Dobby's on screen, it's hard to resist the urge to fast-forward. What's worse for "Chamber of Secrets" is that the later movies (outside of "Deathly Hallows: Part 1") don't feature Dobby at all, which once again renders this second film as the odd one out in the series. For some fans, this movie is the Dobby movie, and that's unforgivable. 

Full disclosure: when I was a kid I had a small TV in my room and one good VHS tape, and that VHS tape was this movie. The result was that I watched this movie several dozen times over a few months, to the point where I had every single line memorized. For some reason, I found Rupert Grint's delivery of the line, "Oh no, the invisibility booster must be faulty!" really funny, and would quote it in situations where it didn't apply. 

Needlessly to say: I like this movie. And I can testify that its spooky, mysterious tone hits hard when you're eight years old. It's the "Potter" film that best functions as a murder mystery story, with the main trio all serving as three hardened detectives solving a great case. Sure, you can argue that all Potter films are mystery stories, but the question of who's causing all these petrifications is easily the juiciest whodunnit premise the series has to offer.

But the best part of "Chamber of Secrets" is that it's the last "Harry Potter" movie that doesn't ignore Ron or portray him in a negative light. Rupert Grint was the best of the main three child actors (in the first few movies at least), and this film took full advantage of that. The fandom at large may not love this second move, but the Ron fans at least were having a blast.