Stumbled onto the Crimes of Rowling

MAJOR SPOILER WARNING. Spoiler-free review: Forecast is not good.

If it is not already obvious, I am a huge Harry Potter fan, however, I was never a big fan of the movies. Then Fantastic Beasts came along, where Rowling wrote the screenplay and we met up with new lead characters, new settings and little ties to the Harry Potter franchise other than Grindelwald and Scamander, two names mentioned in passing. I was revived! It was beautiful; Rowling’s sensitive, humorous writing shined through and the plot was simple, shifting the focus on these very, very likeable characters. At the very last frame, though, we get our first unnecessary twist, the already bad guy was the worse guy in disguise played by the even worse Johnny Depp. That was a bit alarming, but I had no reason to suspect Crimes of Grindelwald would be the mess it was.

I am always one for saying good things first, not because I want to positively prime the reader but to get it over with and to move on to the fun stuff. The CGI was amazing, the beasts were adorable and I am sure they will sell well as merchandise (see how my bitter tone lurks between the words). The direction was by David Yates who directed many of the Harry Potter films and it was as you may remember from these aforementioned films, adequate. ‘T was ok. We are not getting another Alfonso Cuaron, David Yates will do. The acting was obviously good, I mean the lead actor has an Oscar. I have a personal thing; I don’t like Johnny Depp in most current movies, so I was against his casting prior to the wife-beating accusations. Dialogues were not cheesy, apart from that Bogart turning into a desk to signify Newt’s adventurous personality. And again, that warmth that always features in Rowling’s writing was there… at times. The best thing for me were some of the characters; she obviously likes Newt, Jacob and Dumbledore and they are then wonderfully written. And that is how you can tell she likes them. Because everyone else either gets no character development (Tina), gets a stupid character development (Quin) or vaguely gets a character (Credence). I will however say a big thank you to whoever cast Jude Law. Just, thank you. And thank you to the costume designer for putting him in a three piece suit. Just, thank you.

So that is a number of good points and it might be starting to feel like I was too negative for no apparent reason. But when the direction is merely a vehicle for the plot to show, if that plot is dumb then the movie is dumb. And the movie was dumb.

I will briefly mention the thing that has enraged the internet; McGonagall was not born in the year of the movie, ESPECIALLY not during the flashback. Her cameo was a disgrace. Moving on. Nicholas Flamel had little to no purpose in this film other than us going ‘Oh, from the Philosopher, oh, there it is! Oh, stone you do not know what’s coming for you in 70 years time’. Nagini had no purpose in this film and, frankly, I think she was doing okay as a snake. Let’s consider the plot and please keep in mind that this is the ACTUAL PLOT of this NON-FAN FICTION, NON-SOAP OPERA film. The movie begins with Newt banned from travel, which is completely irrelevant as he does travel and the illegal aspect of it plays absolutely no role to the plot. The movie then continues with everyone chasing after Credence, aka Dr. Drake Ramoray, looking for his mum who dropped him at a hostile orphanage, but instead finds his nanny who is immediately murdered, meets a potential sister and a potential murderous half-brother, gets recruited by the villain but ends up being his arch nemesis’s younger brother (or half-brother). Then we meet a childhood friend who has a crush on Newt but is marrying his brother, but then she sort of murdered a baby all those years ago but then she pointlessly sacrifices herself. Then we meet Tina, who Newt likes, but she doesn’t like Newt because typos. And during this whole ordeal we are dealing with bleached Johnny Depp who has a wonky, evil eye, just in case it is not ABSOLUTELY clear he is the villain. In their defence, Depp has not been good in a movie in a while, so they couldn’t risk making it subtle.

And finally, the two things that bothered me the most and I would really like to know if others felt the same way. First, it is an inevitable issue that Grindelwald appears a much bigger threat than Voldemort, which from what I understand should not be the case. Grindelwald, again as I understand it, was the worst thing to have happened until Voldemort and they could say his name just fine, so he must have been at least a little bit better. As these movies are created after the Harry Potter franchise, I get it, they need to up their game in order to entertain viewers, but for me it is off putting at every turn. Secondly and most importantly, these movies have opened up the magic world to include other countries, another continent; shouldn’t they include different characters? Is it not a bit too much of ‘Days of our lives’ that Grindelwald is chasing Credence who might be Leda Lestrange’s long lost brother, but really is the long-lost brother of Dumbledore, who is Grindelwald’s adolescent flame? For the life of me, I do not understand how the wizarding world got opened up and we are still dealing with the same wizarding families that feature in an England based book series. Why did we need a Lestrange in this movie?

I do not know why this happened. Rowling is a freaking billionaire so part of me refuses to acknowledge that this is probably just a cheap play for cash because, as I said, she is a freaking billionaire! But this was just a soap opera with some cute Nifflers running around and aimless shots of nostalgia fired at all of us who loved the well thought out Harry Potter details. Things were so thought out in the Harry Potter seven-book series that at some point, when Harry is presumed dead, he is delivered back by Hagrid, just as he was as a child when he escaped death and was delivered to his aunt and uncle. And that was such a tiny detail holding such weight and emotionality. And in this storyline we got McGonagall shown as a Hogwarts teacher years before she would be born. There is a feeling that Rowling is trying to appeal to the fans with all these Easter Eggs referring to the well-loved franchise but I think most of us feel cheated and as if we are watching fan fiction barely better that that featured in ‘Harry Potter: Origin of the Heir’ (check it out with alcohol).

There are so many more issues which you can find online. I personally found Screen Rant’s ‘Crimes of Grindelwald Pitch Meeting’ as the best and funniest video and some of my points are so much better shown there, I do not risk plagiarism. What I think happened, is Rowling got herself a good old case of GerogeLucas-itis (trademark) and the prequels we all begged her for on Twitter might suffer the same fate as Anakin Skywalker; no leg to stand on (I tried not to type it, I swear. But I did laugh a little bit when I thought of it).

Stumbled onto Venom

                                                       

Venom had been an emotional roller coaster for me prior to its release. I was initially excited because Tom Hardy, I was then skeptical as it would be separate from the Spiderverse (not sure if I am using the term correctly), then disappointed at the trailer which looked generic and boring for 2018 superhero standards and ultimately disinterested as bad reviews came roaming in. However, there was a free Venom ticket with my name on it so I did go see it and I am glad I did.

I would like to make one thing clear; the critics were right. I am aware of this new trend to discredit critics because they are overly critical (?), they don’t reflect the audience views and have it out for mainstream movies. But their work is to assess a movie compared to its peers, in this case the MCU and DCEU, and put all this movie-watching experience they have to some use. Of course people would go see Venom; it starred Tom Hardy, it is a popular character, there was plenty of pop culture controversy and Eminem did a Jimmy Kimmel segment in the Empire State building for the soundtrack. That does not mean it is a good movie. The visuals were unacceptable for 2018, the dialogues were so cheesy it made the visuals look good and the plot was poor too. And, unpopular opinion, Eminem’s song was also unacceptable, cheesy and poor.

So, the critics were right. But the audience was right too. Because I had fun. It was not a good movie but it had tons of potential. The moments between Venom and Eddie Brock were so fucking enjoyable, I didn’t care about any of it. They were hilarious, they made sense, they were well acted out by Hardy and did I mention they were hilarious? I walked out of that movie thinking the critics were objectively right, but I can’t wait for the next one! I read the term ‘buddy comedy’ somewhere and I think that is appropriate. Also, while I know many didn’t think much of Riz Ahmed’s limited performance but personally I think kudos are in order for Ahmed, who had the coldest, most villainous, detached reactions in this movie, I very much enjoyed him as the Elon Musk-esque bad guy.

So yeah, it was a messy, messy movie and perhaps it was enjoyable for all the wrong reasons; many claim that the funny moments were unintentional considering how unintelligent the rest of the plot was. But I am a bit more optimistic, I think it is a work in the making and that the next one will be as fun but better and the one after that will be even more fun and even better. And there is something about not having your typical, fine-tuned superhero movie that appealed to my nerdy side; of course it is silly and stupid and badly made but you love it like the nerd you are. Plus, Tom Hardy. I’ve watched him drive for one and a half hours and it was fantastic.