This one has a much darker tone to the last one, maybe it's the subject matter and the events that happen, and maybe it's the direction too. The theme is not so much fire in this one, oh there's still a lot of candles and Fawlkes the phoenix goes up a right treat, but the emphasis here is more on liquid, on water. There's always water about in Myrtle's bathroom. There's a pool of water in the Chamber, the diary bleeds ink and Slytherin's dorm is under the lake. The film seems to be trying to drown its viewers in darkness at times, not literal darkness of course, but rather that darkness of evil and wrongdoing. There's a graveyard feel to the film at times, from Nocturne Alley to the Forbidden Forest and then the Chamber of Secrets itself, it's like one big mausoleum at times and we're all inside of it unable to get out of it. I think that's genius at times, I really do, it shows a master director at work, not thinking just about one sense but all of them. This is a very different movie to the previous one and its not afraid to show it, despite all the familiar trappings of HPATPS it moves beyond the safe and known into new areas, new places, new emotions and feelings. The young lead characters feel more than before, they learn that there's wickedness and wrongness in the hearts of others, of adults. Evil is presented in the form of Lucious Malfoy, sadistic, manipulative, usurer and coward, he is the big bad and yet he's kept to the perifery of the story because Harry's not ready to face that level of monster yet, instead he fights evil in the form of a memory of the past, a parasite that leeches life away from the innocent youth that will one day be his wife. Harry can stand up that in a way he just can't stand up to an adult yet, otherwise he'd have nothing to fear from the nightmare muggles that are the Dursleys.