Review of Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald (2018) by Sarah B — 16 Nov 2018

After having seen the movie for the third time today I feel safe to share my honest opinion.

Fantastic Beasts is a fan pleaser with stunning visuals, great performances, some good laughs and many, many easter eggs.

Yes, it does feel like a bit of a setup for the movies to come, but this considered I still found it quite enjoyable.

Johnny Depp put my worries about him playing Grindelwald to rest. He fully embodies the character and was probably the most pleasant surprise of the movie.

Of course one also needs to mention Jude Law as Dumbledore. His performance is perfect. He IS Dumbledore - powerful and wise, with a twinkle in his eye, enough of "dumbledorishness" to feel very familiar and yet we clearly see a younger version of him and he still has to go through some things to become the old wise man we know from Harry Potter.

Eddie Redmayne plays a wonderfully lovable Newt Scamander and everyone who liked him in the first movie will love him in this one as well - even though he has less screen time.

All the other actors are doing a great job as well.

The movie score is perfect, the visuals engaging, the niffler is back and plays a vital role in some key scenes, we get to see Hogwarts again, which is definitely a special moment for fans. Overall the movie will please those in love with the universe.

However there are things which I found a bit problematic. Firstly the story telling. As has been mentioned by many reviewers there are many many small plots, as different characters are introduced in order to establish some things for later movies. This results in a kind of jumping around dynamic between scenes and plots that is sometimes confusing even for hardcore fans but probably nearly impossible to follow for anyone who doesn't have a good knowledge of the wizarding world. The movie was definitely made for fans - to be honest kind of exclusively for fans as others will probably not enjoy it. much. One could say that this is the weak point of the movie. It does not work well as a stand alone piece. Within a series of movies it does make sense though and is valid as a world building piece. I definitely recommend seeing it more than once. There are so many hidden things and easter eggs that one cannot possibly comprehend everything on the first go. Some things are still left unexplained and some plots unfinished which makes us crave for the next movies.

The biggest problem I have with this movie are two timeline issues. One concerns a smaller character who is not important to the main plot in this movie. The timeline error is annoying but can be overlooked. The big reveal at the end of the movie which everyone who has seen it is talking about these days and which must not be given away since it's a mayor spoiler, poses a timeline problem as well - and a big one at that. There are various theories as to how Rowling might be able to navigate her way out of this problem but we will have to wait for the third movie to find out what is really going on here. As a hardcore fan I hope the timeline can and will be fixed somehow. This will be essential and will make the difference between Fantastic Beasts turning out to be a great story or the entire Potter Universe crashing and not making sense anymore (yes, it is that serious!) Knowing J. K. Rowling I am willing to give her the benefit of the doubt here and believing - for the time being - that she will have another plot twist up her sleeve that will fix this. If she does, "Crimes of Grindelwald" can be seen as a pretty decent wizarding world movie that will please many fans. It definitely does not fit the standard definition of a "good movie" (which would mean that it works well as a stand alone piece and can be enjoyed by any audience and not just hardcore potterheads) but as a world building genre piece it is still very enjoyable and will have fans craving for more.