Review of Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald (2018) by Tomas B — 02 Dec 2018

Where do I even begin with this film. It's really not good. Just in a general sense there's too much going on, too many characters, too many plot threads that contribute absolutely zilch to the overall narrative. I'm someone whose prime for keeping up with overly complicated plots, but at the moment I'm writing this review the migraine I got from trying to keep up with this film is still wearing off. I used to love Rowling and her writing, but if anything this film proves she's a novelist, not a screenwriter. She's cramming too much into the script and the film as a whole and as a consequence no character is even able to breathe in this film, much less even begin to be intriguing or relatable.

*Spoilers* now for the rest of the review as I go into specifics. First off so many of these characters aren't necessary and muddle everything that is going on in the story. Newt's brother Theseus, the french Wizard Yusaf, and Nagini (Yes, Voldemort's snake in mortal form. It's a whole thing that's just there and leads to nothing) contributes nothing really meaningful to the story and often muddle the main plot threads. Theseus just is there to add unexplored melodrama between the Scammander brothers in how Leta is engaged to Theseus, but was at one point in love with Newt. Leta's arc ends up having nothing really to do with either of the brothers and the love triangle just distracts from what makes her truly interesting; that her sense of being a monster in playing a role in her infant brother's death. However just after this is revealed she dies kinda needlessly so any emotional investment in her character is lost. Yusaf's whole backstory and quest to avenge his mother's death are interesting, but are rendered mute and pointless. Plus he's supposed to be Leta's half brother, but that's never explored at all either.

The whole film is supposed to be about chasing this wizard Credence, thought to be dead at the end of the first film, but is just explained away as being alive and in Europe for some reason. What makes the plot an issue is that our supposed protagonist, Newt, is not even directly pursuing Credence directly till the last half hour or so of the film. There's too much time wasted on relationship drama and misunderstandings that could be resolved with a single sentence. Also Newt is not the person to be the lead of this film. His only reason for being there is trying to tell Tina that's he's not engaged to Leta, which he doesn't do till their approx fourth scene together. Tina, or Leta, or Credence would have been a much better protagonist in this story as they actually have a stake in what is going on in the plot.

Jude Law is also great as Dumbledore, but his affect on the plot is minimal, though the same could be said of every character in this movie having no effect on the plot. The end twist that Credence is actually Aurelius Dumbledore comes out of nowhere. There was absolutely nothing in the film besides a passing reference to a phoenix that ends up hinting at it, and even then there's no explanation of how this twist is remotely possible, let alone true, within this story.

It's well acted, I'll say this that every actor bring's their A game. I think these characters could have been really interesting and relatable say this were not a movie and instead a novel. As it stands though the greatest crime of this film is that it claims to be a part of the Harry Potter franchise.