Last night I saw Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets.

By now, of course, most of the western world (and probably various other parts of the globe) has seen the movie, so there's little or no point in my reviewing it, other than to give you my opinion for the sake of it.

Re-arrange the words in the preceding sentence into a coherent format, and enjoy.

The cinema was about half full, and a lot of the audience were kids with their parents.

Ordinarily, this sets off alarm bells in my head, about the prospect of people talking during the movie.

People talking in cinemas is one of my all-time biggest pet-hates with the general public. It's way above people pulling in front of me without signalling, or not noticing when the traffic lights have turned green. It's even above people dawdling when they drive on the scale of things that make my blood boil.

Part of the problem, is that anyone under 30 has grown up in a world where there have always been video recorders in the house, and if you miss something during a movie you're watching on tape, you can rewind.

So now, we have an entire generation, who've grown up, without any conscience about shutting the fuck up in cinemas.

Over the years, I've come up with a number of barbed comments, that one day, if I'm feeling either bold enough, or drunk enough, I'll launch at these inconsiderate morons, when the movie ends.

My favourite so far is, "If I'd wanted a running commentary, I'd have brought Harry Carpenter with me."

Anyway, as it goes, my fears were largely unfounded. In fact, the audience of young kids was better behaved that a lot of all-adult audiences it has been my misfortune to try and watch a movie with.

I think the sheer quality of the movie, in terms of storyline, performances, and visuals, helped keep all the little tykes spellbound, throughout.

That was no mean feat, because this is a long movie. Nearly three hours in fact.

All the cast were good, no-one stood out as being in any way bad. I just wish they'd use Robbie Coltrane more - he's a talented actor and he deserves more to do.

Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson and Rupert Grint are all excellent in the three main child roles. This time round, Radcliffe really gets to kick butt with both wand and sword.

Visually, the movie is a real treat. Lots of CGI seemlessly interwoven with real actors and sets. I'll not give too much away about the story, but if you're afraid of spiders, avoid this movie!

I think my favourite prop was the flying Ford Anglia - a tribute to 1960's British car making!

If you enjoyed this first Harry Potter movie, this sequel is a really worthy successor, that has me looking forward to the next instalment.