By Marriya Schwarz | Deputy Editor
Do yourself a favor and obliviate any positive expectations you have before viewing J.K. Rowling’s most recent addition to the Harry Potter series canon, Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald. While the first film, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, scored a 74 percent on Rotten Tomatoes, the newest film hit a descendo charm and fell flat with an abysmal 37 percent. It is a film filled with exposition, extravagant costumes, nostalgia, and little else.
Not much has happened since we left off with Newt Scamander (Eddie Redmayne) and his case of fantastic beasts. His book has been published – something that is given little importance or weight throughout the film – and he is back to living in foggy London, England. Audiences are treated to seeing the full magical realm of his magizoological hideaway where he stores his beasts, ranging from baby Nifflers to a full-grown kelpie. Queenie Goldstein (Alison Sudol) and a drugged-up Jacob Kowalski (Dan Fogler) show up in London, basically just to make the point known that Tina Goldstein (Katherine Waterston) is in Paris. Newt Scamander is tasked to find the dangerous, but misunderstood obscurus (Ezra Miller), who is gallivanting with his companion, Nagini (Claudia Kim) – because it seems that every single character needs a backstory in J.K. Rowling’s eyes. They both happen to be in – you guessed it – Paris. How convenient. This is all to stop the very Nazi-like Gellert Grindelwald (Johnny Depp) from taking over the wizarding world.
The previous film was critiqued for being a classic “set-up” film. Audiences got an introduction to magical beasts, everything from a slithering occamy to tree-dwelling bowtruckles. Fantastic Beasts left audiences astounded by Academy Award winner Colleen Atwood’s spectacular costume designs, and previous Academy Award winner Eddie Redmayne’s acting performance. Despite all of this magic, audiences were left to ask one question: “Okay yeah, but then what?” It was clear that this film was setting us up for something big and we hoped that Crimes of Grindelwald was the pay-off.
But audiences are still asking the same question. Where J.K. Rowling goes wrong is by assuming that novel writing lends itself at all to a screenwriting process. She introduces a bunch more characters – some of which are not fully new to those of us in the Harry Potter realm: Theseus Scamander, Leta Lestrange, Nagini, Yusuf Kama, Albus Dumbledore, Nicolas Flamel, which is an ensemble that will boil down to asking “Wait, who was that evil French lady?” Each character gets their moment in the spotlight where they are able to disclose their whole backstory. Over time, it becomes way too repetitive and convoluted with more forgettable monologues than a Shakespeare play. To make things more interesting, she dumps in nostalgic references to distract audiences from the lack of craft in the film. For example, a young Professor McGonagall makes a surprising cameo in a Hogwarts scene – surprising because she was not born until eight years after the events in Crimes of Grindelwald take place. Instead of answering questions that no one asked and explaining that Albus Dumbledore and Gellert Grindelwald had a very sexual relationship, maybe J.K. should take a minute to reread her own books.
Or at least rewatch the first movie. Queenie Goldstein is suddenly famous for being crazy in the wizarding community, even though that was not established at all in the first film. There is no sisterly relationship between Queenie and Tina Goldstein, which was the glue of the previous movie. In the previous film, Credence was an all-powerful being, but in this film, he is bested by a man with a magical bubble.
Or at least, J.K. should just reread the title of her own film; Fantastic Beasts: Crimes of Grindelwald is very Grindelwald heavy with very few beasts.
The one shining moment in the film is Albus Dumbledore (Jude Law) looking not like a snack, but like a whole Great Hall feast. Eddie Redmayne is also a natural charmer on screen, but there are multiple scenes where the camera is so zoomed in that audiences start paying more attention to his freckles than the actual dialogue of the film. Maybe that is a tactic in and of itself.
As the credits roll, audience members are left to pick up the pieces of this not-so-fantastic film. The only way to understand it is to get onto Rowling’s famed digital publishing website, Pottermore, to try to figure out who these new characters actually are. The film is more of an advertisement than a well-thought out film. Do yourself a favor and save your time; it is the type of film that will make you want to accio your money back.