★½

Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald (2018)

Written by Dalton Welsh - May 12, 2020

Following the adequate quality of the first Harry Potter spin-off “Fantastic Beasts & Where to Find Them”. Many people, myself included, hoped that the greater attention to the rift between Grindelwald and a young Dumbledore could further help rekindle some of the magic, pun intended, from the original series. Instead we got Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald, a convoluted, confused and overstuffed film that fails to get one genuinely interested in the sequels already in the works. While there are certainly worse films than this, when it has the budget that it does and being directed by David Yates who brought us half of the original Harry Potter series and with a script written by J.K Rowling herself, it has no excuse to have been so poorly constructed.

Before the onslaught of negative criticism begins let us start with the positives, or rather the positive, that being Jude Law’s performance as a young Dumbledore. Much like Ewan McGregor in the Star Wars prequels as a young Obi-Wan-Kenobi, Law is the only saving grace, he truly captures the essence of Michael Gambon’s original performance as Dumbledore but intertwines it with an organic youthful energy. If only they had dropped all pre-tense of it being a Fantastic Beasts movie and gave Dumbledore a more central role, which brings me to the first criticism, the overabundance of plot. Not only do we follow about five different stories, it also decides to introduce a slew of new characters to the series, making for a collection of underdeveloped scenes containing even lesser developed characters. One could consider overlooking these shortcomings if perhaps they were essential to the story, but many of the scenes and the characters could be completely removed from the film and it would have no effect on the end result. Even to the point where you forget about scenes and plot elements within the films 2-hour runtime because they feel so inconsequential to the main story as well as being wildly uninteresting.

Now let us talk about how it has developed from the first film, which had some genuinely likeable characters, how has their story progressed in this film? Well unfortunately the writing team, by which I mean J.K Rowling, decided that they weren’t interesting anymore and we should focus on the new cast of names. So, by doing so these characters we actually have something of a connection to are no more than present in the film as the attention is given to the other cast members who we know next to nothing about. Even when they do decide to give the original cast screen time they completely alter their character, or in the case of Tina and Newt’s romantic relationship set up in the first film, remove any sort of chemistry that may have been present. 

Now what about the “Fantastic Beasts” element? You know the title of the film. Well, since the creatures don’t have much of an opportunity to develop a character the most important part is there design, and they all just look kind of gross. You compare it to say the Hippogriff Buckbeak in the original Harry Potter series which is essentially a combination of a horse and a falcon, it has a cool designs and so you are interested in how the characters interact with it. Additionally, because they incorporate elements you recognize it is more believable to see and is reminiscent of a folk lore creature giving it a more magical quality. You compare that to the beasts here which are just a CGI hodge podge of ugly features thrown together with no sense of their weight or power to the point where it is just an object occupying the screen.

And then after all that the film’s conclusion is its most embarrassing revelation. After a serious of laughable reveals and plot twists an anti-climactic battle begins and then the film unceremoniously ends. I don’t want to get into spoilers for anyone who still wants to see the film to witness its embarrassments, but If I were to begin to explain just how bad this ending is it would require a whole review of its own. There’s even more to get into with the rest of the film like the egregious fan service in the scenes at Hogwarts and the introduction of new magic elements unused in previous films simply introduced because J.K Rowling kept writing herself into a corner. But the review is long enough as it is.

To Summarise, Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald represents almost everything you do not want to see in a film. Underdeveloped characters, a bloated story, convoluted and arbitrary twists, plot holes, ugly design, contradictory character motivations, and milking a series because of its guaranteed box office. I look forward to the next film in the series, only to see how J.K Rowling can further ruin the reputation of the world of Harry Potter.