Movie Review: Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald

A total disaster

Fantastic Beats: The Crimes of Grindelwald (2018): The second installment of the "Fantastic Beasts" series set in J.K. Rowling's Wizarding World featuring the adventures of magizoologist Newt Scamander.

I was actually pretty excited to see this new entry into the Fantastic Beasts series. I was a shockingly huge fan of the original installment, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, in part due to the magical performances of Eddie Redmayne, Ezra Miller, and especially Katherine Waterston. The dynamics between Newt, (Redmayne) Tina, (Waterston) Quennie, (Alison Sudol) and "muggle" Jacob (Dan Fogler) were compelling to me, and were reminiscent of the wonderful relationship of Harry, Hermione, and Ron which grounded the original Harry Potter series. However, writer J.K. Rowling, (who was given full autonomy over this film's script and the direction of this series, for that matter) and director David Yates clearly did not see the groundwork of this series the same way I did. Instead, they chose to focus the second installment of this franchise on the weak and uninteresting villain, Grindelwald, so they could hand over the face of this franchise to.......Johnny Depp? Seriously? (Oscar! Is that really Johnny Depp helming a major movie franchise in 2018? ARE YOU SURE?) I mean, I know there are like five more of these things, but why go all-in on freaking Johnny Depp? No wonder J.K. Rowling went out of her way to defend Johnny Depp after he found himself on the wrong side of the #MeToo movement. Most of the decisions made in this film make no sense, and it's all covered by this weird level of "prestige." As if J.K. Rowling fully believes this franchise will be every bit as culturally impactful as the original Harry Potter franchise. All of this combines for an installment that is so bad it honestly makes me want to revisit the original Fantastic Beasts and figure out why I liked that one so much. I am questioning my very sanity, right now. It's not good.

So, uhhhhhhh, good things. Ezra Miller is good! I mean I think Ezra Miller should be in everything ever so of course I would enjoy Credence. Honestly, Credence is basically the only saving grace of this film. His arc is far more interesting than what I remember in the first one: he's more of a flawed character struggling to find his purpose versus a sort of comic book villain that everyone is seeking for some reason. While it will be largely overshadowed by how much of a comic book villain Grindelwald is, J.K. Rowling is doing a pretty good job with Credence thus far. Minus the completely RIDICULOUS "twist" at the end of this film. Also, Dumbledore is cool. Jude Law is essentially playing himself, but I'm ok with that. Also, the "fantastic beasts" are still cool! They look good, as they should in a big budget film in 2018, but it's still worth mentioning when you're struggling to find anything decent to mention in this dumpster fire.

And that's because everything else is awful. Let's start with the core characters: Newt, Tina, Quennie, and Jacob. Their dynamics are not built upon in any way, (it also doesn't help when Tina is only actually in the film for like 30 minutes, but that's neither here nor there) as instead J.K. Rowling chooses to create division between Quennie and the rest of the group that isn't earned in any way and totally contradictory to her character in the first film. I mean, imagine if in The Chamber of Secrets Hermione had decided after reading a few books written by Tom Riddle, "Ya, actually all of these wizards being turned to stone deserve it because y'all have been mean to me, so I'm joining the Death Eaters now."  Sure, it would've delivered the shock value in the moment, but it absolutely would've sacrificed the arc of her character in the long run. That's exactly what happens to Quennie here. Her character does a complete 180 for the sole purpose of delivering shock value in this installment. SPEAKING OF SHOCK VALUE. The twist at the end is hilariously awful. Like, I almost laughed out loud at the screen. It doesn't fit into the world at all and does nothing except tell us that J.K. Rowling is all out of original ideas.  Finally, gotta take a second and talk about the uninteresting Grindelwald. Why did J.K. Rowling go all-in on this character? He's not interesting or unique and is nothing more than a comic book villain. He's decided that wizards are better than humans, but for some reason isn't immediately rising up against them because........reasons? In the climax of this film it takes like 30 wizards to stop him from destroying all of London, why doesn't Grindelwald just jump into the muggle world and announce he's a wizard and going to take over the planet? Like, even the Transformers franchise figured out that there was no way these giant robots were going to be able to "sneak" around the earth two films in. It doesn't help that Grindelwald is portrayed by Johnny Depp, a dude who has had one single decent film (Black Mass) since he debuted his character in the original Pirates of the Caribbean. Yes, Johnny Depp showed us he was the symbol of white male entitlement even before he weathered the #MeToo movement. Now, his overbearing presence dates the film while you're watching it, and the incomprehensible decision by Warner Brothers, J.K. Rowling, David Yates to double-down on the decision to stick with Depp may even spell doom for this franchise.

In case that wasn't enough, this movie isn't even all that good from a technical perspective. Sure, the effects are decent, but the lighting, production design, and cinematography are all..... bad. There are a TON of corners cut in these departments by David Yates, with the highlight being one of the worst chase sequences I've ever seen to literally open the film. This opening scene is shot at night, in the rain, and is so muddy, dark, and incoherent it would make The Lone Ranger proud. Speaking of incoherent, why is this film so dark? From start to finish, so much of this film is shot in dark corridors and on dark sets. Not only does the lighting crew fail to show up at points, but the production designers failed to put any vivid colors on set. Everything is brown, grey, or black. That's something of a trivial complaint, but if you're going to give us a convoluted story and force us to watch Johnny Depp for two hours, at least give us some pretty colors to look at!

In conclusion, in case you haven't figured it out yet, Fantastic Beasts: The Crime of Grindelwald...... it's not good. It's not even worth watching once it hits streaming services. I'll give this franchise one more go because I am somewhat interested in what they do with Credence, (stupid plot twist aside) I am exactly the demographic that grew up reading the Harry Potter books, and hopefully they'll realize we need more of Newt, Tina, Quennie, and Jacob, but I won't lie: we're on thin ice now. I can hardly recall a time a franchise has crashed and burned so spectacularly. (Sure, The Hunger Games comes to mind, but we all knew that Mockingjay was going to be a crapshoot. That makes it somewhat easier to bear.) What a shame this franchise has fallen so hard. Hopefully now it can pick itself back up.

The Critique: A disastrous sequel, Fantastic Beasts 2 loses all the charm of its predecessor, in part, because of ignoring its core characters and instead focusing on its unimaginative and dull villain. 

The Recommendation: AVOID LIKE THE PLAGUE.

Rewatchability: Low

The Verdict: 2/10 Garbage.



Image Credit
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