Second Potter installment takes darker, edgier turn

By Claudia Puig
USA Today

Harry Potter's friend Ron Weasly (Rupert Grint) examines a mandrake, a lethal humanoid plant/animal that students at Hogwarts must dissect in the second Harry Potter film, which opens Friday. Warner Bros.

Happy that his "Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets," the second installment in the hugely popular series, is opening Friday. And happy that the film is, in his words, "darker, edgier and more exciting."

Those three characteristics come together winningly in the form of a hybrid plant/animal known as a mandrake. From its leaves sprout lumpy, turnip-like roots that take the form of creepy, ultra-blubbery infants. Worse, they emit terrible shrieks that can kill.

"They're grotesque, baby-like Buddhas," says production designer Stuart Craig. "The students have to chop them up for a class, so you don't want them to be too cute."

Come again? Kids slicing and dicing infantlike creatures?

David Heyman, producer of the "Potter" films who discovered J.K. Rowling's first book, says: "We've got to be careful in these politically correct times that we don't remove all the edges."

Fans all over the world embrace the edges and the excitement dreamed up by Rowling. Children are counting the days until the next installment of the boy wizard's tale arrives. Anticipation reached feverish heights last year for the first saga, "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone," which grossed $969 million worldwide.

As enthusiasm reaches a fever pitch in school yards and on Potter Web sites, this all seems very familiar. Like its predecessor, blockbuster status for "Secrets" is guaranteed.

"The first one was about discovery, with 40 minutes of exposition," Columbus says. "The second film is a real action adventure, an old-fashioned, rip-roaring yarn. The characters are growing and becoming teenagers."

This time around, there's a difference in Harry, 13-year-old Daniel Radcliffe says: "When he returns in "Chamber of Secrets," his home at Hogwarts is under threat from an evil force, and he fights to protect it and therefore becomes proactive."