Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald (Review)
The Crimes of Grindelwald is a Worthy Sequel, but is it a Worthy Harry Potter Film?
I’ve never been a big “Potter Head.” So, I wasn’t waiting for bated breath for Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald, especially since the first Fantastic Beasts wasn’t exactly great. Of course, I’m sure there are a ton of Harry Potter fans who were waiting patiently for the new Wizarding World to hit theaters, and for them, I’ve got some good news and some bad news. The good news is that The Crimes of Grindelwald is a lot better than the first Fantastic Beats movie. The bad news is that it’s still not as good as the vast majority of the Harry Potter movies.
The first Fantastic Beasts movie generally introduced us to Grindelwald (played by Johnny Depp), who is essentially the Hitler of the Wizarding World. While we didn’t get to know him too well in the first movie, director David Yates wastes no time showing just how wicked his character is. In the first ten minutes of the film, we basically get to see him straight up murder a baby. The thing is that Johnny Depp has never really made for a great villain. He’s much too energetic and charismatic to play the criminal mastermind and his performance as the second evilest character from Wizarding World feels more like a mental patient who escaped while still doped up on sedatives. Most of the film features him wandering in and out of frame while starring longingly off into the distance. Needless to say, I wasn’t a huge fan of his in this film. However, I was a rather big fan of a new addition to the cast.
Jude Law is an incredible young Dumbledore. Despite being decades younger than the other actors we’ve seen take on the role, Law manages to bring out the old soul within the character while still injecting him with a youthful energy. Much of The Crimes of Grindelwald revolve around trying to understand the unique relationship between Law and Depp’s characters. As fans of Harry Potter might know, Dumbledore is very much a proud member of the LGBT community and it’s pretty clear exactly what kind of relationship he had with Grindlewald. However, this film never overtly comes out and says it. That isn’t to say that this movie shies away from it or even tries to hide it, instead it seems much more like Dumbledore simply doesn’t feel it’s anyone’s business (which it really isn’t).
Of course, much of the previous cast from the last Fantastic Beasts movie returns, most notably Eddie Redmayne as Newt Scamander. While he had a sort of boyish charm in the first film, this time around it seems more like he suffers from crippling social anxiety. Everything about him seems like the character is on the verge of a panic attack, which is something I can certainly relate too, but not really a trait I admire in a hero. In fact, he seems very much like the last person one might send to defeat a silver-tongued devil like Grindelwald. His character seems much more at home with the incredible mythical creatures featured in the film. Then again, I felt a lot more interested in them than in a lot of the characters in this film.
The Crimes of Grindelwald is a visual spectacle. There’s definitely a story going on, but it’s the creatures and magical battles that I enjoyed the most. Yates brings the magical world to life in such a way that the Harry Potter movies were never really able to. This film very much takes a look at magic in the wild. It’s more about the application than the practice we saw in the Potter movies. While the previous film took place in New York City, The Crimes of Grindelwald mostly takes place in Paris. More importantly, though, it brings back some beloved creatures from the first film while introducing a number of new ones that I was thrilled by. This time around there are dragons, demon cats, and even a Kappa. As a lover of animals, especially mythical ones, I was thrilled by this. I only wish that we could have focused more on them. The only real downfall with the world that Yates creates in the film is that the camera tries too hard to take everything in. There are so many scenes with so much happening that the tracking shots moving through them tend to cause all the action to blur together. Normally this wouldn’t be a big deal, but seeing this film in IMAX is a recipe for disaster. I found myself struggling to take everything in more than a few times when it came to this film, and I imagine it would be quite overwhelming for a lot of people trying to enjoy a nice, quiet movie about wizards and witches trying to kill each other.
Honestly, I don’t think that The Crimes of Grindelwald is a bad movie at all. It’s not one that knocked my socks off, but its certainly well worth seeing in theaters if you’re a big fan of the franchise in general. The characters are a bit weak and I can’t say that any of them earned my admiration (though I’m excited to hopefully see more Dumbledore in the sequel). The creatures and effects are the real stars of this film, and I hope Yates plans to fully embrace them in the next film. People who aren’t die-hard Harry Potter fans won’t miss out on much but certainly will not regret going to catch this film in theaters. As far as the ones who might love this movie? Well, they probably don’t care what I have to say, but if any of them are reading, rest assured that this is one sequel that is much better than the original.
