At the end of Year 1 (Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone), Harry (Daniel Radcliffe) had once again escaped Voldemort's grasp, and foiled his plans to come back to full life and begin his reign of terror once again. This year starts off a bit rocky though as he meets a new type of magical creature, a house elf. This particular house elf, Dobby (Toby Jones), claims that Harry is in grave danger and feels The Boy Who Lived should not return to Hogwarts. What Harry doesn't realize is the extent that Dobby goes to in order to keep Harry safe, often times causing Harry quite a bit of harm in the process.
Despite Dobby's request, Harry makes his way to school (which is an adventure in and of itself), where he starts to realize Dobby's warning is related to an ancient Hogwarts' legend proving true. It seems that when one of the founding members of the school broke away from the other three and left, he vowed that he had a monster hidden away in the castle and one day, his heir would return and unleash it upon the castle in order to kill all of the muggle-born students in the school. To make matters worse, Harry quickly becomes the main suspect around school when he keeps ending up at the sites of the attacks and learns that his ability to talk to snakes isn't all too common and was a trait known by Salizar Slytherin, the founding member who made the original threat. It will take all of their skills, and of course Hermione's (Emma Watson) brains, to find out exactly what is going on and who the real Heir of Slytherin is.
Chamber of Secrets introduces a couple of new characters. The main one is Gilderoy Lockhart (Kenneth Branagh), the new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher. Lockhart is all about fame and popularity as masses of swooning girls follow him and his award-winning smile everywhere. While the character in the book was far more obnoxious as Branagh's portrayal, that's not necessarily a bad thing. The other major character introduced here is Ginny Weasley (Bonnie Wright), the youngest of the ginger kids. While she was seen in the previous film, it was brief and her role in Chamber of Secrets is much more important.
Where Sorcerer's Stone had to do a lot to introduce the world and who everybody is, Chamber of Secrets delves strait into the story and lays down groundwork that will be absolutely necessary for the last two year's of Harry's story (Hlaf-Blood Prince and Deathly Hallows). That plus the fact that the three young stars, Radcliffe, Watson and Rupert Grint as Ron, have all started growing in their capacities as actors makes this film better than the previous one.
As for the Ultimate Edition DVD release, both Theatrical and Extended Versions are here, as well as all of the original DVD extras and the second part to the Creating the World of Harry Potter documentary. If you are wondering what the difference is between the two versions, the Extended Version simply the Theatrical one with the deleted scenes edited back in. The new special features also include the HBO First Look of Chamber of Secrets as well as the screen tests of Radcliffe, Watson and Grint reading from "Hogwarts A History" and learning about Nicolas Flamel.
The "Creating the World of Harry Potter Part 2: Characters" documentary goes through all of the movies and goes into a lot of detail about all of the major characters. What is interesting is that each character's section includes a bit where the actor reads his/her character's first appearance in the book. This documentary also goes into a lot of detail about the relationships between the characters, as well as the relationships that the actors developed. I liked the section that focused on the relationship between Radcliffe and Gary Oldman (who plays Sirius Black). There is also a part during Dumbledore's section where the cast talks about Richard Harris' passing and what it was like working with him, as well as interviews with Michael Gambon, who would replace Harris in the rest of the films.
Much like Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone: Ultimate Edition, this release is all for the fans who don't mind repurchasing the movie for extra features alone. If you don't already have the movies, then this is a great version to pick up, but most people aren't going to be interested in buying this bigger version if they already have another one on the shelf. Personally, I fall into the first category. Even if I didn't get these for review, I would probably have gone out and re-bought the movies, both to see the Extended Versions and new documentary and to help prepare myself for the last movie's release, especially since the film itself is generally better than the last one.
