Review: FANTASTIC BEASTS : THE CRIMES OF GRINDELWALD (2018)
- Name: Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald
- Release Date: 16/11/2018
- Cast: Eddie Redmayne, Katherine Waterston, Dan Fogler, Alison Sudol, Ezra Miller, Johnny Depp, and Jude Law
- Director: David Yates
- Written By: J K Rowling
Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald starts off exactly where its predecessor left off. Grindelwald (Depp) escapes from captivity in a terrific opening sequence. Once out he pursues his singular dream of having the magic folks rule all others of the living world. The only man standing between him and success is Albus Dumbledore (Jude Law). Grindelwald cant kills him (for reasons that are revealed in the end) and so he hatches a plan to use Credence (Ezra Miller) who holds an obscure in himself to do the job for him. Credence is looking to unearth his past. He wants to know who he was before he was dumped in the foster home. As the film progresses, Credence keeps getting more and more impatient as he is unable to get any credible answers to his question.
Dumbledore knows that Grindelwald is after Credence and hence he sends his own confidante Newt Scamander (Eddie Redmayne) to trace Credence and save him from annihilation as well as the harm he may cause if he falls in the wrong hands. The Ministry of Magic is after Credence and Grindelwald. However, some of their own people might just be in the folds of Grindelwald. Tina Goldstein (Katherine Waterston) is after Credence and she has also broken up with Newt as she believes that Newt is engaged to Leta Lestrange (Zoë Kravitz) who on the contrary is engaged to Newt’s brother. Jacob Kowalski (Dan Fogler) has not been obliterated as we believed him to be at the end of the first installment and is head over heels in love with Queenie Goldstein (Alison Sudol). He loses her after a heated exchange and now has to find her and save her from teaming up with Grindlewald. He accompanies Newt as the two strides off on the streets of Paris looking for what they want individually.
As might be clear from the brief of the plot above, Fantastic Beasts: Crimes of Grindelwald is dense on the story front. There is a lot happening and there are a lot of characters involved. However, in all that, there isn’t much action. Instead what we get is a lot of dialogues which are not all that interesting and after a while get extremely boring. For a film which is 2 hours 14 minutes, this one felt more like 3 hours and more. The only times when the film does get interesting is when Yates uses to his advantage what has been the forte of almost all Harry Potter films. The action and the visual.
For a film that is called Fantastic Beasts: Crimes of Grindlewald, there aren’t enough beasts and neither does Grindelwald commit enough crimes to merit that title. Every time the film shifts its focus to the beasts or Grindelwald’s creepy scheming, it lights up like a 1000 watt bulb. I loved the sequence in the freak circus where we get to see Nagini (Claudia Kim) as she used to be before she became the vicious sidekick of Voldemort. She is emotionally involved with Credence and when she undergoes that amazing transformation I couldn’t help but stand up and take notice. There are at least 2 more beast sequences that are great and salvage the lack of visually rewarding moments to a certain extent.
Since so much of the film is about interpersonal communication and verbal drama, a lot depended on the performances. Eddie Redmayne is great as the awkward yet brilliant Newt Scamander. A lot of his charm comes from his awkwardness even though he is a tad bit difficult to understand. I loved his chemistry with his friend Kowalski and the romantic relation he shares with Tina Goldstein. The scene where Scamander professes his love for her in the midst of unimaginable tension and danger is heartwarming and cute. Some of the best scenes of the film are the dialogues between Dumbledore and Scamander. It must be added that Jude Law isn’t there for too long but he totally nails the character of Dumbledore. He is warm, authoritative and uber cool in a role that suits him perfectly.
Johnny Depp is creepy and affecting as Grindelwald. The character is not fleshed out well enough neither is it particularly well written but that doesn’t stop Depp from oozing charisma and confidence. I really loved the climax in which Depp speaks his heart out as Grindelwald and we are able to understand why he is so hell-bent on seizing control of the “mag” and “no-mag” world. What it does is give the viewers a chance to take sides. This is probably the only good thing that the film does in terms of the screenplay which otherwise is cumbersome and one of the biggest problems of the film.
Ezra Miller as Credence is a lot more of what he was in the first film. There is practically no development of his character and the final twist about it left even the most ardent Harry Potter fans bewildered. Ezra is nothing special here neither does his character let him flex any acting muscles. Dan Fogler and Alison Sudol share a cute little story of their own which brings the only comic reliefs of the film but it is too short to make any significant dent. The romantic angle between Redmayne and Waterston is also done well but is plagued by the same issues as that of the Fogler-Sudol track.
I was expecting a lot from this film but unfortunately, it turned out to be shockingly underwhelming. This is the second time in as many weeks that I have been let down by big budget films that I was expecting a lot from. I was even more disappointed with this one because it was written by the master storyteller J. K Rowling. She created this universe and she knows these characters inside out and yet her story is one of the biggest problems with this film. A lack of action, prolonged passages of time where nothing really happens and some boring characters make Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald a totally missable affair.
Rating: 2/5 (2 out of 5 Stars)
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