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).
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