Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald Review

The second film in the Harry Potter spin-off series sees a big expansion of its storytelling scope.

After the events of Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, Newt Scamander (Eddie Redmayne) is banned from leaving England unless he joins the Ministry of Magic. When he refuses to do this his old teacher, Albus Dumbledore (Jude Law) assigns Newt a mission to find Credence Barebone (Ezra Miller) before Gellert Grindelwald (Johnny Depp) does.

When Harry Potter was first published it was a surprise hit and built a massive fanbase. What J. K. Rowling created was a rich world filled with magical lore and an extensive history. It was excellent material that was ripe for expansions. Even though the Wizarding World was extensive all the books were told from Harry’s perspective. This made the books a slow-burn that gradually allowed audiences to get accustom to the mythology and jargon.

Harry started as an 11-year-old boy with no knowledge of the Wizarding World: readers learned as he learned. Most of the events were seen through Harry’s eyes. Any outside information was either told to Harry, Harry entering a Pensieve, or through Harry’s mental link with Voldermort. When the film franchise turned into Fantastic Beasts the first film was mostly focused on Newt.

Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald marks a major change with the style of storytelling. The Crimes of Grindelwald zoomed away and showed multiple storylines. Besides Newt going off to find Credence, Tina Goldstein (Katherine Waterson) was also on the hunt for the young man. There was a love triangle storyline between Newt, his brother, Theseus (Callum Turner), and Leta Lestrange (Zoë Kravitz), and Credence was in Paris searching for his birth mother. It was a cluttered film with little focus. It’s amazing because the Harry Potter novels and films had self contended stories like the Basilisk terrorising Hogwarts and Harry competing in the Tri-Wizard Tournament, as well as having the over-arching story of Voldermort’s return and the coming war.

The plan for the Fantastic Beasts series to tell a five-film arc and the second film suffers a major problem: it was all set-up and no payoff. This is a problem that has affected a lot of recent franchise films: such as Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Terminator Genisys, and Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom. These were films that leave lingering plot threats for later films or being the cinematic equivalent of treading water. The ending of The Crimes of Grindelwald was just introducing new plotlines for film number three.

J. K. Rowling and David Yates commit two sins when making The Crimes of Grindelwald. The biggest of these was the retcons. The first act of The Crimes of Grindelwald reserved the ending of the first film: within 15 minutes it’s revealed that Credence had survived despite exploding and Jacob’s (Dan Fogler) memory was never erased. Rowling made millions writing novels yet this was incredibly lazy. A retcon that affected the wider mythology was the reveal that Nagini was a human who was cursed to be a snake: it was an illogical decision that doesn’t add anything to the storyline and raises big questions. It would have made more scene that Nagini was just a snake who was loyal to Voldermort because he could speak Parseltongue

Despite the retcons, The Crimes of Grindelwald also forced in a lot of fan service that serviced no purpose. The film takes a detour to Hogwarts and shows some familiar locations. Professor McGonagall makes an appearance as well as The Mirror of Erised. The film also brings in Nicolas Flamel, just because he’s a name fans recognise.

Rowling seems to be going down the route of creators like George Lucas: ruining their creations. In recent years Rowling has become a figure of ridicule for her Twitter rants. She has tried to retcon her work through Twitter announcements which range from the bizarre (like wizards’ toilet habits) to trying to score political brownie points. I would say she should give up screenwriting duties to another writer and just act as a producer: but I know that’s unlikely to happen because she has the final say on anything Wizarding World related.

The Crimes of Grindelwald was a dark story, at times just for the sake of it. One of Grindelwald’s first actions was getting one of his followers to murder a baby and later on in the film it was revealed that one woman was the victim of the wizarding version of date rape. These scenes came across as shock value and a cheap way to show how evil some characters were.

Despite the issues with the film, The Crimes of Grindelwald did have some merits. It was a pacy film that had the action, effects, and spectacle one would expect from a blockbuster film. The prison escape scene at the beginning was an exciting set and the filmmakers ensured there were plenty of set pieces. It wasn’t a slog like The Half-Blood Prince film. It was great to see more of the international picture of the Wizarding World and the setting of Paris worked better than New York in the first Fantastic Beasts film: this was due to the film actually shot in the French capital, whilst Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them was filmed in England. It was nice to see that Leta Lestrange was a Slyerian but still worked for the side of good.

The Crimes of Grindelwald was a messy film that was the culmination of greed and hubris. The small moments of merit were not enough to save the film. There needs to be a big improvement for the third film.