Review of Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald (2018) by Lynestar Y — 16 Nov 2018

So today I saw Fantastic Beasts and the Crimes of Grindelwald Directed by David Yates and written and produced by J.K. Rowling and I came out the cinema with mixed feelings. As a devoted Harry Potter fan I was expecting great things giving J.K Rowling's previous works and I don't want to seem as though I was unsatisfied as I feel this film did do a lot of things well but overall I was hoping for more out of my most anticipated movie of 2018 and I feel it just wasn't there yet. I was pretty excited to see where they could take this when I saw Fantastic Beasts and where to find them but for reasons I will go into I just feel like they didn't do a great job in establishing this as a sequel.

The first 30 minutes of the movie does a fantastic job in establishing the new characters and getting familiar with characters from the first movie, however it's done in a way that doesn't feel very interesting or engaging for the audience to watch, there are some great visuals of the London Ministry of Magic and the Paris Ministry but other than that I was not very interested at all in what was going on story wise, it wasn't until I saw Jude Law's Dumbledore task Newt Scamander to go to Paris did I feel at all interested to see what was going to happen.

The CGI in Fantastic Beasts was spectacular to see and it was really well done. I think it's the best looking CGI we have seen from a wizarding world film which of course considering it's 2018 that should be the case but I feel as though I should mention that as a some 2018 films have had some pretty horrible CGI compared to other 2018 releases. A lot of the shots were quite bright but some of them felt like they had been edited to look darker that they're meant to look. As though someone had taken a nice bright shot of the hills and put a black filter over it and turned the opacity of the black filter to 5%. However David Yates Directed a beautiful looking movie overall. The tone of the film felt serious, the film was taking itself seriously which I really liked, the tone never contradicted itself by having extremely goofy moments and it's consistent throughout the film.

The Characters were really lively and interesting, perhaps except Nagini who perhaps could have been more fleshed out as she felt like more of a side-attachment to Credence than a real person with her own identity in the film. Other than that Eddie Redmayne as Newt is really, really quite an amazing performance from him and i'm really interested to see where his character goes. I felt Jude Law played a great Dumbledore and I liked this earlier version of Dumbledore quite a lot due to the fact he has a lot of flaws in his early days and I can see where they're going to turn him into the Dumbledore of the Harry Potter films. I also think Ezra Miller as Credence is excellent and I'm definitely a lot more interested to see where his character goes compared to the previous film now that's he's more of a character that can do what he wants rather than what he's told. Johnny Depp as Grindelwald was fine, but due to my expectations being quite low I was pleasantly surprised and while watching the scene when he gives the speech to his followers where I completely forgot I was watching Johnny Depp.

I am interested in Grindelwald, he is an interesting character but I feel like he's not even close to enough of an evil wizard that we were led to believe. I would like to compare a scene from the Philosophers stone to a scene from Fantastic Beasts and the Crimes of Grindelwald, I won't be able to show you the scene due to copyright claims from the Crimes of Grindelwald but if you have seen the movie you will know what I'm talking about. [Roll Clip] Now compare this to the scene where Grindelwald and his henchmen walk into a house and the henchman kill the man and woman, but suddenly they hear a child crying up in his room so Grindelwald and his henchmen walk into the room, but Grindelwald leaves the room and lets his henchmen kill off the baby. The reason I have a problem with this is that Grindelwald is supposed to be evil but he only kills one person throughout the film, yet he's supposed to be evil. I just feel like if you want us to believe Grindelwald is evil then perhaps show us him doing evil things. Also I acknowledge that Voldemort and Grindelwald are different and that Voldemort tried killing Harry to try secure his power and dominance but Grindelwald's whole motto is "For the Greater Good" and I feel like if he was to tell his henchmen to leave the room and he himself kneel down to the kid and tell him that he's sorry but it was for the "Greater good" then it would have established Grindelwald as a villain that does the wrong things while believing he is doing the right thing which are villians most people can relate to. I'd also like to bring up the point that I never feel like Grindelwald is a major threat. They talk about Grindelwald being a threat but they never show it and a major rule in film is show don't tell. We knew Voldemort was a major threat because we knew exactly what he was capable, we also knew that he was recruiting an army, we also knew he had spies everywhere which meant he has a constant stream of incoming news. Grindelwald however seems to have just had his first meeting with his followers and has 2 henchmen by his side, Grindelwald has potential to become a great threat and a great villain we just need to be shown it, not told it.

This bring me on to my next point that I feel like this was just setting up a sequel instead of being its own standalone film unlike Chamber of Secrets or Prisoner of Azkaban which have their own identities as films. This film sets up Dumbledore to be able to fight Grindelwald due to the fact that the blood fusion stone thing that Grindelwald was wearing is now in Dumbledores hands, it sets up that Grindelwald is going to have more followers, it sets up that Credence is going to have a bigger role in the next movie It sets up that Queenie has joined Grindelwald. There's no defining moment that gives this movie it's own identity, even the name Crimes of Grindelwald is boring because it's not like he not going to commit any more crimes in the following movies so even the name doesn't give the film something that the other film won't have so this movie is basically in my eyes just a Fantastic Beasts and where to find them part 2 and of course you have to set up the next movie in the franchise but you have to also make the film interesting in its own right, again but to just compare it to chamber of secrets no one will argue that Chamber of secrets doesn't have it's own identity due to the fact that the chamber of secrets is it's own story that none of the other Harry Potter movies are similar to. I'd also like to add that there never felt like there were much stakes throughout the film. Newt literally has no disguise in the French Ministry of Magic as it wears off while pictures of him are on walls telling people he's a wanted man but the only thing that happens is that his brother is able to spot him, none of the other aurors, just his brother, they literally start running through the French Ministry of magic and there's no consequences. Also as I have previously stated, Grindelwald never feels like a threat so I don't feel any stakes when they were confronted with him. There's also the fact that Grindelwald tries to blow up Paris with his blue fire but again, no stakes. I never felt that Grindelwald was ever powerful enough to blow up Paris while 5 or more wizards including Nicholas Flamel were standing by to stop it due to the fact that we never had a real representation of his raw power while using magic, where as compared to the Voldemort vs Dumbledore fight where in the ministry of magic they are throwing everything they got at eachother. So overall I give this film a 6/10, disappointed but as a loyal potter fan I am still optimistic.