Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry remains a magical kingdom of state-of-the-art visual effects. [...] fans of the first movie and, of course, J.K. Rowling's series of children's books, will embrace "Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets" with the same enthusiasm they did the first film, released a year ago. The sense of discovery, that initial encounter with the stories' vivid characters and whimsical parallel universe, is missing.

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