Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald **
½ / *****
Directed by: David
Yates.
Written by: J.K.
Rowling.
Starring: Eddie Redmayne (Newt
Scamander), Katherine Waterston (Tina Goldstein), Dan Fogler (Jacob Kowalski), Alison
Sudol (Queenie Goldstein), Ezra Miller (Credence Barebone), Jude Law (Albus
Dumbledore), Johnny Depp (Gellert Grindelwald), Zoë Kravitz (Leta Lestrange), Carmen
Ejogo (Seraphina Picquery), Claudia Kim (Nagini), Callum Turner (Theseus Scamander),
Victoria Yeates (Bunty), Ólafur Darri Ólafsson (Skender), Kevin Guthrie (Abernathy),
William Nadylam (Yusuf Kama), Joshua Shea (Young Newt Scamander).
One of
the reasons why the Harry Potter movies got better over time is that as the
series progressed, the books they were based on got longer, and various
screenwriters and directors had to edit them down to their essentials. Yes, you
miss some of the side plots and details the books provided, but once the books
got too big to recreate faithfully in their entirety onscreen (which started in
the third installment – also when original director Christopher Columbus
stepped away), the storytelling became leaner – and better. This wasn’t exactly
the case with the original Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (2016) –
although that felt spent so much time world building (and creature building),
that the plot almost felt second hand anyway. The job of the first film then
was to establish this world, our main character Newt Scamander (Eddie Redmayne),
the shy, awkward, stuttering lover of all creatures, before the rest of the
series (apparently, there will be five in total) can really start telling the
huge story it apparently wants to tell.
Perhaps
that’s why Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald feels so bloated, and
can only occasionally capture the magic that the Potter series at its best
could muster. There are so many characters in this film and so many subplots,
that just trying to keep up with the exposition takes up most of its runtime, leaving
precious room for anything else. There are a few moments where that magic does
kick in – and you feel those same feelings that the Potter series can muster,
but two films and over 4 hours of runtime into this series, it kind of feels
like when you start watching a Netflix show your friend has told you “gets
really good around the 6th episode, you just have to power through
until then” – except this time, you’re just taking it on faith that the good
stuff will actually get here at some point.
The basic
plot of this film is that Grindelwald (Johnny Depp, doing a more muted version
of his usual shtick), who was arrested at the end of the last film, escapes at
the beginning of this one, during a nighttime transfer where they were supposed
to be taking him from America to England (speaking as someone who watched all
11 Michael Myers Halloween movies last month – stop transferring prisoners!
They always escape!). This escape sequence is perhaps the best in the movie –
and the one filled with the most visual imagination (probably also because it’s
the lone time in the movie that we go longer than 30 seconds with someone
having to explain something to someone else). The newly freed evil wizard’s
plan is to unite all the Pureblood wizards, and lead a revolt against the
Muggles of the world, so that wizards can take their proper place in charge.
The only wizard powerful enough to go up against Grindelwald is, of course,
Albus Dumbledore (played here by Jude Law) – but he keeps insisting that he
“can’t” – and we get hints in brief flashbacks to his teenage years when
Dumbledore and Grindelwald were “closer then brothers” (why this series seems
to pussyfoot around just coming out and saying Dumbledore is gay, and
Grindelwald was his lover, I have no idea – since JK Rowling herself said he
was gay a decade ago, and yet in the books/movies themselves, they don’t do
anything accept have him exchange meaningful looks, and look off into the
distance like he’s Heath Ledger hugging Jake Gyllenhaal’s shirt at the end of
Brokeback Mountain). So, of course, he enlists Newt Scamander into the mission
– which isn’t to fight Grindelwald exactly, but to find Credence Barebone (Ezra
Miller), the angry, powerful young wizard obsessed with finding his true
identity and harness his power, who is key to Grindelwald’s plan.
That, of
course, should be enough plot for this movie – but it barely scratches the
surface. The movie also brings back Newt’s lover interest, Tina (Katherine
Waterson, who is far better in the film than her role should allow), who is
also on Credence’s trail. And Newt’s brother, Theseus (Callum Turner), who
works for the Ministry of Magic, and is engaged to Leta Lestrange (Zoë Kravitz),
who Newt was once in love with. And Tina’s delightfully ditzy sister Queenie
(Alison Sudol), and her muggle boyfriend Jacob (Dan Fogler). And Credence’s new
friend, Nagini (Claudia Kim) – who we know will become Voldemort’s Snake. And
that still leave a few more subplots, and other characters – and a couple of side
trips to Hogwarts for good measure – out of what happens in the film.
What
happened, I think, is that somewhere along the way J.K. Rowling has fallen in
so love with the dense mythology she has created for her world to exist in –
and she wants to put it all on screen. To be fair, it is a good mythology, and
there’s lots of interesting things to dig into. And yet, with the original
series, you had screenwriters like Steve Kloves around to take all that
mythology, and trim it away – so it’s there in the background, and lets the
actual story play out in the foreground. Here, it’s almost as if the background
is all there is.
Do I have
hopes for this series still? Sure. There are still elements I quite like – the
original creatures are more often than not delightful, I like Redmayne has the
shy, quiet center of the film, and I like some of the supporting characters as
well. Even Johnny Depp didn’t bother me as much here as he has in some of his
more recent work, because he’s dialed back the strangeness to a more acceptable
level. And maybe, now that the filmmakers and Rowling have spent so long
setting everything up, they can finally get down to giving us what we actually
want out of these movies
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