The title of this movie is Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald. I would imagine you would make it very clear what Grindelwald’s crimes actually are, since it’s the frigging TITLE. However, as far as I can tell, Gridelwald has 2 crimes in this movie: escaping prison, and a crime of appearance and fashion. Such is the case for Fantastic Beasts 2, a movie that ends up being a table setting slog that will make most of its audience unhappy.
Following the first film, we pick up The Crimes of Grindelwald (Johnny Depp) as the prisoner escapes from an American prison and flees to Europe. The now young Albus Dumbledore (Jude Law) believes Grindelwald is after Credence (Ezra Miller), the obscurial from the first film in hopes to use him as a weapon. Dumbledore sends Newt Scamander (Eddie Redmayne) on the case for mysterious reasons, but Newt’s brother Theseus (Callum Turner), who works for the ministry, is also heavily invested in bringing Credence in, so their paths will collide. Newt will also have to encounter Tina Goldstein (Elizabeth Waterston) and her family again, since the American Auror who Newt has feelings for is also eager to bring Credence and Gridelwald to justice.
It felt very often that The Crimes of Gridelwald is telling somewhere between 100 and 200 stories at the same time. The synopsis above is just the start. There’s also Queenie (Alison Sudol) and Jacob’s (Dan Fogler) troubled relationship. There’s Leta Lestrange (Zoe Kravitz) and her family also being involved (you can tell from this statement who gets the shortest shrift). And somehow, all these characters’ lives intertwine and have relationships with everyone else, with no previous knowledge from other films most of the time. So The Crimes of Grindelwald furiously bounces from one story to another, abandoning characters until they are necessary and then spending multiple expository dumps explaining how people are related to one another. Thus, when big revelations happen down the road, none of them have the impact they should because we simply were not given enough time to care about these people. And because there are so many stories to tell, the wonder and awe of a magical world gets pushed to the side too often, taking further whimsy and joy out of the proceedings.
The biggest and boldest decision The Fantastic Beasts franchise makes is tying in Albus Dumbledore’s past into the story. This, like the Star Wars prequels, gives us a clear end point: the legendary duel between Dumbledore and Grindelwald. On the other hand, this also means the story has to pivot away from the best parts of the first Beast film. That movie was essentially watching a Harry Potter film from Hagrid’s perspective: we get to see some amazing creatures, learn about new magical worlds, and most importantly, are unencumbered by maniacal fan driven magical canon. That all changed with the Grindelwald reveal at the end of the film. Expectations and excitement are now thrust upon previous character development (no offense Newt, but Dumbledore is WAY more interesting than you), relegating the first film to filler, and disregarding what makes that movie enjoyable. Now you have to ham fist the characters from the first movie into established canon, taking the beasts away from Newt to focus more on Grindelwald, Dumbledore, and obscurials. And since JK Rowling is writing the screenplay, she’s given free will to tie in whatever character names she wants into the story, further sidelining the headliners of The Fantastic Beasts film and basically making it a Harry Potter prequel. You’d think this would please the fans, but the way Rowling uses established canon here is infuriating. We get no Elder Wand discussion, a half assed Lestrange family tragedy, Nagini and Nicholas Flame references that go nowhere, unfair treatment of the LGBTQ movement, and a final minute reveal that will piss off every Potter fan so much that they will refuse to believe it is true.
It’s becoming clearer with Rowling and David Yates (the director) that either they are given no oversight or they are ignoring any critiques people are giving their art. The Crimes of Grindelwald demands repeat viewings to figure out what is going on, and I’m pretty sure these viewing will just make you madder at what a slog the movie is. Poor Newt, all he wants to do is chill with his misunderstood pets, why you doing this to him Albus? Tough look for my guy…