'Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald' Review

In an effort to thwart Grindelwald's plans of raising pure-blood wizards to rule over all non-magical beings, Albus Dumbledore enlists his former student Newt Scamander, who agrees to help, unaware of the dangers that lie ahead. Lines are drawn as love and loyalty are tested among the truest friends and family in an increasingly divided world.

For the sake of full disclosure, I consider myself to be a relatively passionate fan of Harry Potter and the greater Wizarding World. I own all the Harry Potter books, initially read them all within a single week, actually own multiple copies of the films in varying formats (having recently purchased the Ultra-HD editions during Amazon's lucrative Prime Day sale since the collection was heavily discounted), and I enjoy them all to varying degrees. With that being said, I was somewhat underwhelmed by Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them when I first saw it two years ago and therefore tempered my expectations for its follow-up. I found it reasonably charming but felt it paled in comparison to any of the previous Harry Potter installments. When I went to see Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald earlier this week at an IMAX fan event, it was the first time I'd gone to see a cinematic story in the Wizarding World and not been particularly excited about it. In spite of an awful title, mixed reviews, and a series of subpar trailers, I had a glimmer of hope that I may at least salvage some enjoyment in the latest Fantastic Beasts franchise entry though.

 

Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald is the second installment of the planned five entry Fantastic Beasts franchise to be directed by David Yates and feature a screenplay penned by famous Potter author J.K. Rowling, though some creative shake-ups may be in order if early reactions to the sequel are any indication. As much as I appreciate the wonderful Wizarding World Rowling's created, she's struggling as a screenwriter and needs some guidance in condensing her material. Rowling's writing style is dense and exposition-heavy which works for the purposes of writing a series of books. However, that approach isn't suited to the realm of filmmaking and Rowling's shortcomings are quite evident this time around as The Crimes of Grindelwald is even more overcrowded than the first Fantastic Beasts. 

There's very little plotting in this second chapter, but always an excess of information, storylines, and characters onscreen. About half of the characters in the film (most of which are crammed on the poster up top) are either first introduced here or were only vaguely referenced or alluded to in the previous film. With that in mind, it seems very illogical for many of the emotional story beats to rely on audience investment in these characters. We're barely introduced to many of them but are clearly meant to care about them in retrospect of the feature's cliff-hanger ending. The characters mostly meander from one location to the next in search of one another or key information while many of the pertinent events happened off-screen years ago or in between films (particularly relating to Albus and Grindelwald).

Much of this stems from the foundation of this spin-off prequel series. The primary source of my disappointment with Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them was that a simple twist-of-events turned the franchise into a stealth prequel story building to a duel between Grindelwald and Dumbledore (I still have no idea why five films are necessary to do so by the way) when the Fantastic Beasts franchise is branded as being about Newt and his magical creatures. The protagonist is an ancillary character to this central conflict by the very nature of the story being told, and The Crimes of Grindelwald doubles down on everything I disliked about the first film by further minimizing the beast's inclusion and placing additional emphasis on Grindelwald and Credence. To me, it would have made more sense for Rowling first to write a series of novels that would later be adapted to film. This could have alleviated the current creative issues in addition to providing an additional revenue stream. Since milking this franchise seems to be of paramount importance, why no splurge twice with both book sales and box office? The fanbase will come.

Sufficed to say, I was indifferent to just about everything that occurred within the two hour and fourteen-minute runtime. The charm, whimsy, and sense of awe and wonder that the Harry Potter franchise is known for were entirely absent while The Crimes of Grindelwald also contained the weakest world building in the series, as little was done to differentiate the magical community in Paris from what we've seen thus far. I will, however, concede that the film was technically proficient for the most part with solid visual effects, production design, costume design, and another epic score from James Newton Howard. The beasts are also neat despite being much less involved in the action. 

Otherwise, I unfortunately considered a majority of the fanservice to be ham-fisted and largely unnecessary (i.e., the Nagini retcon). I've also never been so bored by a visit to Hogwarts... Usually, I associate the magical castle as being a warm, comforting locale due to my familiarity with it. In this particular instance, the trips there didn't feel substantial or invoke a nostalgic feeling of relief as I'd suspected. It came across as a cold, corporate decision in spite of some plot relevance. There were certainly some cameos and connections that didn't bother me or worked in the context employed, but I'd rather not spoil those here. As for a final rundown of other drawbacks, none of the action excited me, there was a great deal of romantic drama I didn't care for, and the ending felt like the conclusion of bad fan fiction. There are also some especially odd framing choices made by Yates which consisted of an obnoxious amount of extreme close-ups that made little sense in the context presented. For example, a character would be doing something that you'd expect to be able to see, but you are then antagonized by an extreme close-up of their face instead.

Prominent returning cast-mates include Eddie Redmayne, Katherine Waterston, Dan Fogler, and Alison Sudol, who are each a cut above the quality of Rowling's script. The quartet further imbues our focal four heroes with the unique personalities which captivated audiences two years ago. Newt Scamander's an introverted lead character, but Redmayne still sells Scamander's shy nature as an endearing attribute. Fogler fittingly provides a welcome source of comic relief in this darker entry as nonsensical No-Maj Jacob Kowalski while the Goldstein sisters respectively remain ambitious and free-spirited as portrayed by Waterson and Sudol. Meanwhile, Ezra Miller mostly mopes around as Credence while Claudia Kim's Nagini hardly has a personality of her own, following Credence around to the same degree which she later slithers behind Voldemort. Meanwhile, franchise newcomers include Zoë Kravitz's conflicted Leta Lestrange, Callum Turner's accomplished Auror Theseus Scamander, and William Nadylam's revenge-seeking Yusuf Kama. 

The stand-out by-and-far though was Jude Law as a younger Albus Dumbledore. Law channels the best attributes of both his predecessors, bringing the warmth of Richard Harris and the quiet intensity of Michael Gambon. While I was largely disappointed in The Crimes of Grindelwald, I'm looking forward to seeing more of Law in this role. 

Putting his problematic personal life aside, Johnny Depp was actually not half bad as Grindelwald. Another actor could have honestly made him more malevolent, but Depp is fine. The issue is that the source material doesn't give him much to work with since he's maybe in a total of five-to-seven scenes. Depp doesn't offer an eccentric antagonistic performance, but rather a very enticing one. Grindelwald certainly qualifies as a mustache-twirling villain, but he's positioned as the Wizarding World's Hitler equivalent in the sense that he's a highly persuasive public speaker.

It's evident that J.K. Rowling meant for The Crimes of Grindelwald to be her Empire Strikes Back, but she failed spectacularly because it's the first hollow story told in the Wizarding World (plus, that's the point of Half-Blood Prince's cliffhanger). Potterheads have likely already made up their mind about going to see The Crimes of Grindelwald or already seen it by the time I publish this review, but I encourage casual fans hoping to immerse themselves in the Wizarding World to simply stay at home and watch or read Harry Potter instead. J.K. Rowling may as well have cast Avada Kedavra on this franchise because this overcrowded mess of a sequel certainly qualifies as an unforgivable curse.

Film Assessment: C-