In June of 1997, British author J.K. Rowling released Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone through the publisher Bloomsbury. Retitled Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone for American audiences in 1998, the book gained widespread critical acclaim. It was a massive hit, leading to several more books until Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows in 2007. This led to the movie version of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone in 2001, which became a massive success. This led to seven more films, and the franchise has gone on to be the third highest-grossing film series ever. After the release of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 2 in 2011, a new prequel series was started. Released in 2016, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them received favorable reviews and grossed over $800 billion worldwide. Following its success, we got a sequel entitled Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald.
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Following the events of the previous film, dark wizard Gellert Grindelwald (Johnny Depp) is being transported from America to Europe. While being transported, one of his followers, Mr. Abernathy (Kevin Guthrie) helps free Grindelwald, who kills the guards and escapes. Meanwhile, magizoologist Newt Scamander (Eddie Redmayne) tries to restore his right to travel after losing it in the last film. The Ministry will only allow it if he joins them in tracking down Credence Barebone (Ezra Miller) who has resurfaced. Newt rejects the offer, but is soon summoned by Albus Dumbledore (Jude Law) to find Credence in Paris. Newt accepts once he finds out that Tina Goldstein (Katherine Waterston) is in Paris also searching for Credence. Also searching for Credence is Grindelwald and his minions, who believe Credence is the only wizard capable of killing Dumbledore. It’s a race against time to find Credence while he searches for his identity.
Now while I’m not super obsessed with the franchise, I generally do enjoy the Harry Potter movies. While some are better than others, they’re generally well-done and entertaining movies with fun characters, interesting stories, and great action. And while I don’t remember much of the first Fantastic Beasts, I do remember thinking it was quirky and fun. With that in mind, it pains me to say that I honestly did not enjoy this movie much. I will say that this movie, on the whole, isn’t awful, and there are some things to like here. For one, David Yates’ direction is well-done and it has great production design and fun spectacle here and there. Also, the performances are generally strong, with Jude Law easily being the best part as young Dumbledore. And every now and then, there is some of the quirky charm that made the first film enjoyable.
Aside from that, the biggest issue I had with this movie was just how insanely boring it was. After the opening sequence, which admittedly was entertaining, a majority of the runtime is devoted to exposition dumps. There is so much explaining and backstory given that, after a while, I just stopped caring about what was happening. Plus, it’s one of those sequels that undoes what happened at the end of the first film. For example, the end of the previous film had the memories of the non-magic users erased of what happened. However, we learn here that Jacob Kowalski (Dan Fogler) had his memory restored with the explanation being “it didn’t work”. Things like this and how much meandering there is really bogs the movie down and ruins whatever potential it had. Overall, hardcore fans might enjoy it, but for me, Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald is a pass.
