Review of Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald (2018) by Jluis_001 — 24 Nov 2018

J.K. Rowling is a good writer. What she achieved with Harry Potter was surprising, after all she made many children become interested in reading again. Even for me Harry Potter also meant a lot. His books were among the first ones I read as a kid and I continued with my love for the saga during my adolescence and yes let's say that now as an adult I still enjoy the films.

The books are part of my library and I now consume these new films and I repeat; I think she is a good writer. Hardly a great one but her work was solid, however and sadly, there's a serious problem: She's not a screenwriter. Maybe someone made her believe it and the people involved in the production allowed it, but even though the characters of this whole universe belong to her, it's incredibly obvious that she's not a good screenwriter and unfortunately this films suffers because of it.

Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald is a film completely devoid of structure. Being a film of little more than two hours long, its plot barely advances a little. Evidently they're trying to extend the story, though perhaps too much. Even getting into trouble with her own mythology.

Unlike the previous film, in this one, everything feels pretty lackluster. Everything that made the previous film pleasant is completely absent here. All the events feel hurried and misguided, in addition to leaving almost all situations completely open.

The theme is interesting, especially for those who already know more or less where the story is going, but the way in which Rowling builds the events feels neglected and what probably would have worked very well in a novel doesn't translate well to the cinematic language and therefore doesn't work as it should.

And also I have to say that the film has two very serious problems. The first has to do with its title. By being called Fantastic Beasts the story has to include them even though they're completely unnecessary. The second one is the level of magic shown in these stories, which is far superior to that seen in the Harry Potter films, with the exception of the battle between Dumbledore and Voldermort in Order of the Phoenix.

Voldemort being a more powerful and obscure wizard than Grindelwald, I'm surprised that he could never have done something similar to Grindelwald's final attack in this film.

And above all, don't fool yourselves, maybe they're selling us Newt Scamander as the main character of this franchise now but frankly it's quite evident that this story is aimed at building the mythical final duel between Albus Dumbledore and Gellert Grindelwald and especially the ultimate fate of the new key character: Credence, who finally gets to know his true identity at the end of this film.

Although it's fair to ask if with the little success this film has had at the box office, Warner will move forward with the five films plan. I really don't know that, although frankly there's no point in making five films if you're only going to be sharing crumbs in each installment until they reach the ending. That's not fair to the fans because it honestly seems a very rude way to take more money out of them with what little is being delivered.

I said this because the mystery of this film is poor. The biggest revelation only happens in the last two minutes and everything that goes on until that moment is really not essential, it's not really important, they don't give anything really substantial and that disappointed me a lot because I'm a fan of this universe, but it is what it is.

The only reason I gave it a five is for one simple reason; The level of production remains at the very first level. The magic of this magical world created by Warner is still there.

You can see that technology has advanced and honestly, the film looks excellent. Only some minor problems in which the green screen is very evident, but beyond that, the visual effects, the costumes, the sets, the music. Everything's excellent in those departments. I cannot complain about that at all.

Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald was very regular. It wasn't worth the two year wait. It's definitely the most disappointing film of this franchise so far but I could hardly say that it's the scandalous failure that many people are saying it is. I don't see it that way and I don't believe it, but it's very far from what was promised.