A Harry Potter book is that rare children’s title we’ll read in public without shame, not even hiding the cover under a Thomas Pynchon dust jacket nor claiming loudly that we’re “just holding it for someone else.” Truth be told, we’re looking forward to Book Five more than Film Two. But while J.K. Rowling continues to struggle with Order of the Phoenix , now delayed until 2003, Chris Columbus’ film franchise zips forward. It has the advantage this time of lowered expectations—not to say that it won’t do huge box-office, but Pottermania has died down since its peak. Having met expectations with the first film, the main thing now is for Columbus not to screw this one up, and wreck the rest of the series. It helps that the story is less byzantine than subsequent installments, which all begin to feel like setup for whatever Rowling has planned for the seventh novel. In this episode, something is turning students at the Hogwarts wizardry school into stone, and when suspicion falls on Harry, he and his friends have to track down the real culprit. Kenneth Branagh comes on board as Gilderoy Lockhart, Harry’s insufferably vain new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher. Lockhart provided some of the books’ best laughs, and while we think Branagh’s a better Shakespearian than a comic actor, he can certainly pull off pomposity.
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