Review of Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald (2018) by Austin B — 04 Dec 2018

For many fans of the Harry Potter franchise, the Fantastic Beasts series was truly a gift from the acclaimed J.K. Rowling. Her first film introduced a freshly magical world and showed the potential of her first attempt at screenwriting. However, this second film of the series, "Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald," shows the trickiness and different nuances of writing for the big screen that Rowling must still master.

There is no denying Rowling of her masterful work in the Harry Potter series, and the utter brilliance she shows in those pages is not easily matched. However, with the Harry Potter storyline, Rowling has the benefits of writing on pages that will be printed and read rather than produced and watched. With printed books, she has the ability to lay out her complex stories and characters across hundreds of pages, but on the screen, she is limited to a couple hours at the most. Therefore, screenwriting must be efficient, and the story must stay true to core plotlines, even if it means great subplots have to be cut, so that the overall story and characters can be properly developed. The Fantastic Beasts series is Rowling's first shot at screenwriting, and the ability to consolidate and focus the film seems to be her weakest point in "Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald.".

The film itself is filled to the brim with different subplots which are all intriguing for the wizarding world but is ultimately too much. The story is oversaturated with mysterious bloodlines, various love affairs, social moral issues, class struggles, and divided families all with a sprinkle of magical creatures. In the midst of all of this, Rowling also chooses to thoroughly introduce her key villain of the series, Grindelwald. The result of all this is a movie with interesting subplots that could've been great to develop and read on pages in a book but ultimately hard to fully grasp on the screen within a couple of hours.

I fully trust in J.K. Rowling's ability to conjure up an amazing story. She's released 7 incredible books to already prove that. Therefore, as a whole, I'm certain the Fantastic Beasts storyline will be good. However, I believe there are several areas in which Rowling can still improve as a screenwriter. Particularly, she must make the tough decision to cut out or simplify some of her complex subplots in order to give the adequate time needed to let her main plot shine. If she is able to do this with her screenplays, Fantastic Beasts will surely be more highly regarded in the films to come.