Review of Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald (2018) by Megan W — 26 Nov 2018

There were so many, many, things wrong with this movie, and it deeply upsets me as someone who grew up loving the Harry Potter universe as a child. JKR has really missed the mark on this one. I've tried to keep this free of major spoilers. Everything I say you can guess from the movie poster, or is revealed in the first few scenes of the movie. However, I've never been more frustrated, angry, and vaguely insulted at an ending reveal in my life. Let's just say, the math just doesn't add up, it makes no sense, and I can't believe Rowling would use something with careless shock value to cover up horrendous writing.

The entire movie felt like it never actually started, and then it ended. The pacing was weird, too slow in some parts, too fast in others. The chaotic nature of how the movie was written and edited together can be summed up in the opening chase scene with Grindelwald. The action was impossible to follow. The flashes and the movement contributed nothing to the scene, and just left me stunned, sore-eyed, and confused. Action needs space to pay-off, If I can't tell where the spell went, then what was the point.

It was a confusing plot with far too many minor characters introduced for almost no reason. Two named side characters in particular literally contributed nothing to the story and it made the already large cast feel bloated and unfocused.

Huge plot points from the first movie were barely addressed, and carelessly tossed aside in the first half an hour of the movie for more problematic ones that made no narrative sense and was downright lazy. Since it's no secret that Credence is back, I think it was an absolute waste of the ending from the first movie - it's up in the air if he survives, but in the second movie, they just outright tell you in the first 15 minutes of the movie that he's alive and well. Where is the mystery? Where is the narrative planning?

The dialogue was clunky and hard to follow. I could really keep going with all the bad choices made for this film.

I think one of the saddest parts about this was that in an effort to be dark, the movie took away all charm. There weren't any real spells, magic was sidelined in exchange for some weird heavy handed, convoluted plot about missing heirs that frankly no one really cares about. Gimmicks from the first movie with Newt and the magical creatures were lifted verbatim from the first movie and swapped with a different animal. I frankly didn't really understand why Newt was in this movie at all.

Fantastic Beasts should have been a neatly tied off stand-alone film. It was a perfectly entertaining movie on it's own. The Crimes of Grindelwald is an incredibly confusing, sad, and disappointing addition to it that really ruins the flavour of the first instalment and I'm left feeling like Ms. Rowling has completely lost her touch, surrounded by Yes Men who know that her juggernaut enterprise will continue to make money even when the writing is sub-par at best. I expected much more of David Yates as well, seeming as his other entries into the Harry Potter franchise were fairly decent.

Not sure if I will bother to see the last two movies (WHY are there TWO MORE movies!?) I don't think my battered Ravenclaw heart can take it anymore. Some might think I'm being more harsh as a fan who is just being nit-picky but even as a movie out of the Harry Potter context - it was poorly constructed, confusingly edited, and most sinful of all - boring.