Movie Review: “Fantastic Beasts – The Crimes of Grindelwald”
Film: Fantastic Beasts – The Crimes of Grindelwald
Director: David Yates
Actor(s): Eddie Redmayne, Katherine Waterston, Johnny Depp
Genre: Fantasy, Adventure
Runtime: 2 hr. 14 min.
Country: United Kingdom, United States
Language: English
I grew up with the Harry Potter films and with the fan base itself. I had all of the books and read all of them. I saw the movies and was surprised at some of the changes they made and how they all made sense. For a lack of a better word, I love Harry Potter. However, the universe has expanded with the prequel series in store for us, the Fantastic Beasts series. And while the critics and fans alike are agreeing that The Crimes of Grindelwald is the worst in the Harry Potter universe…I’m disagreeing with them entirely.
Let me explain my feelings towards this: I enjoyed all of the Harry Potter films and the Prisoner of Azkaban happens to be my favorite, but a close second would be the Order of the Phoenix and just saying that already gets fans angry. You see, for me, I’ve always enjoyed the Harry Potter films fans hated. I never knew why until I saw the new Fantastic Beasts film. I’ll explain in a minute. For now, let’s dive in to the Crimes of Grindelwald.
For me, going into it was sort of spectacle. By now, I’ve seen enough blockbusters that I’ve absolutely despised the idea that such blockbusters can ever be considered good anymore. All of them appear the same to me and don’t seem to want to change or be different. The only one in recent memory that I remembered loving was The Last Jedi and most fans hated it because it was different than the previous ones. The same can be said for The Crimes of Grindelwald, as it’s not the fluff and awe of the world of wizardry one would expect. Rather, it’s much darker. Let me explain.
This film is intense and turned the tables on me far more than I expected. When I thought it would do what audiences would expect it to, it was as if JK Rowling flipped the bird at us and it was glorious. My jaw dropped more times than from Hereditary. Telling you exactly what occurred would be a disservice to Rowling and to the story arcs themselves. However, I will say that, given what it does here, Rowling must’ve had some intense days writing this because this film almost feels like a horror movie.
Let’s discuss the plot, which is essentially what we have to focus on and what I have to rant about. Critics and audiences alike felt that this film doesn’t have a plot and that it was serving as cue points for the sequels. I say otherwise. Sure, are there questions left unanswered? Sure. Are there moments we wish, as an audience, they would’ve left in the film for us to feel good knowing? That’s an answer I don’t think we should say yes to. Sure, we might want the answer but what is there to gain from it? Knowledge, sure. However, where’s the sense of wanting to see what occurs next? For me, the moments that audiences say set up for the sequels only occur, let’s be honest here, at the very end of the film. And these questions that need answering aren’t something you can do within one film. These need to take time to formulate and structure so that there can be enough satisfaction for both sides of the feature (studio and audience). You can’t just throw it up there and be like, “Yep, here you guys go. We could’ve taken our time to plan this better, but you wanted it now than ever.” Do you get what I’m saying?
All right, now that we’ve got that rant out of the way, let’s make mention to what goes on within the film itself. In a sense, I’m starting to get the sense of the Star Wars Prequel Trilogy creeping in, in that the politics dictate how the world works and how it should work and how it’s going to work. You know, corporal supremacy malarkey. But under all of that, this is a film about love, but the ones that are prohibited. While the Harry Potter series always details that the moral reasoning with friends and family is love and acceptance, The Crimes of Grindelwald suggest a darker, sadder truth to that. One that seems to have been an uphill battle to get where it was in Harry Potter’s own timeline from Newt’s. In a sense, it almost feels like it’s connecting the idea that prohibited love between wizards and pure bloods (what they called muggles back in their timeline) is almost in connection to interracial marriage and same-sex marriage. It almost seems political to say that, but it seems to be a more accurate idea going forth into this series.
Let’s go to the characters. This is where I feel the movie has problems. The backstories themselves aren’t at all bad. Rather, they help advance the plot along and give more insight to the world that we’re thrown into. However, the new characters are just mere throwaways for those plot points and are instantly thrown to the wayside thereafter. Many characters that I started to love and would hope are in future endeavors of the series would be shoved off and forced into obscurity that it was almost maddening me to clench my fists and scream that famous Braveheart line. But I’m getting way too ahead of myself here.
I understand that this film has upset the wrong crowd and will probably not make as good of a revenue as the first one did. But if I’m being honest, that’s completely dumb to think that. As an audience, we need to understand that we shouldn’t be spoon fed the same schlock over and over again and JK Rowling knows this, too. She tried to write a darker story with a real world dilemma and she accomplished just exactly that. She didn’t need to rely too heavily on the action sequences to make a good Fantastic Beasts movie. She just decided to follow the story. Much like I did.
Final Grade: B+
By Noah Peterlin
11/29/18