Review: Chamber of Secrets

What you will notice is that the magic is darker, the pace is faster, the story is more adult, and the scares are, well, scarier. I'll keep my own opinions for the review. Like my colleague Fay Maschler with her restaurant guests, I polled my very young companion at the premiere for her opinion. "Super" sums it up.

A deep-throated roar of appreciation went up from young throats - and possibly, after 162 over-indulgent minutes, from those of their parched parents - as Harry once again worsted Lord Voldemort in the damp, serpent-ridden crypts of Hogwarts, an area of outstanding natural terror with which we are now thoroughly acquainted.

My little companion had been a wee bit dubious when she first laid eyes on a new character, a sad-eyed, piggy-eared, computer-animated house-elf called Dobby, sent to warn Harry not to return for the next term. But then making new chums is always tricky for children. By the end of the film, when this forlorn little drudge has gained his freedom from serfdom, she took to Dobby like the Yoda in Star Wars.

Hogwarts has two new teachers this term. My personal favourite was Miriam Margolyes, as Professor Sprout, re-potting the magical mandrake plants in the herbology class to a chorus of shrieks and squeals of anguish from the living roots. Maybe what influenced me in favour of Miss Margolyes was her comment, relayed by CCTV outside to the screen inside: "I don't like children very much." "Miriam! How can you say that?" shrieked the TV interviewer, very like a mandrake root herself.

My little companion loved Kenneth Branagh, as the pompous, preening Gilderoy Lockhart, teacher of Defence Against The Dark Arts, who screws up every magic spell he tries to cast. She giggled a bit nervously when Rupert Gint as Ron, who she prefers to Harry Potter because "he looks more mischievous", had a spell cast on him and began vomiting slugs and lizards. I was afraid the children might find the gigantic spiders attacking our heroes a bit too scary. But not a teary shriek was heard.

My companion did seem confused when the story did a sudden-flashback 50 years. Young children can't yet master these narrative time shifts as easily as they master VCR timer gadgets.

Maybe I would welcome Hogwarts students taking a gap year before the third film. But the race is clearly on to get as many adventures into the can before Harry and co have to begin to shave. And with £214,000 already in advance bookings, the Odeon, Leicester Square can well afford the popcorn and Coke they put on every seat for the premiere patrons. My companion chewed and slurped my share as well as her own: which is more than Fay Maschler's lucky restaurant guests usually get to do.