By George Haerle
For Grays Harbor News Group
If there’s one entertaining thing that we get out of “Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald,” it’s the return of the adorable and mischievous Niffler from the first film. Otherwise, that’s about it.
The second in a planned series of five films, “Crimes” can’t be described as anything but filler — J.K. Rowling’s chance to pull one from the George Lucas playbook and write a big-budget and self-indulgent prequel to her much superior previous work.
Rowling wrote the hackey script that series veteran David Yates directs, and even he doesn’t escape due criticism here. The movie is a bloated, chopped-up mess that jumps from character to character to subplot to subplot every three minutes, slathering on lore, winks and nods from the Harry Potter/Wizarding World mythos. Even its strongest fans might want to cast an Obliviate spell on themselves by the end.
The characters and their actors are all still decent; the problem is, they are stuck in a completely mediocre film that is little more than an information dump of history and a setup for the sequels to come. It never bothers to try to tell any kind of heartfelt story or explore its original characters further to flesh them out more and build audience attachment to them. Newt (Eddie Redmayne), Tina (Katherine Waterson), Queenie (Alison Sudol), and Jacob’s (Dan Fogler) characters all suffer because the filmmakers’ primary goal is to set up future paychecks.
Instead, “Crimes” is focused on exploring the past of newcomer Lita Lestrange (Zoe Kravitz) and attempting to build hype for the inevitable Albus Dumbledore (Jude Law) versus Gellert Grindelwald (Johnny Depp) battle that Rowling has referred to in past books. And Ezra Miller returns as Credence Barebones, but his character is subjected to a cliché, dull backstory, so it’s no surprise his performance here completely lacks heart.
It’s here that we come to the biggest core problem: Rowling and Yates seem much more interested in the Grindelwald backstory and sequel build up than they do in any sort of fantastic beasts. While several fun creatures make appearances or contribute to a few of the characters’ escapes from peril, they have mostly been forsaken for self-indulgence. Even the Niffler, a fan favorite, gets very little screen time.
If there’s anything positive to note (besides the Niffler), it’s Jude Law’s performance as Albus Dumbledore. He has the warmth, heart and charm required to portray the character in his backstory with Grindelwald, which perhaps should have been its own movie, separate from the “Fantastic Beasts” franchise.
Depp is decent as Grindelwald, but definitely not a memorable villain in any capacity. However, this can’t quite be blamed on him, as the character has been written as a more soft-spoken carbon copy of the X-Men series’ Magneto. The difference is, the X-Men movies actually gave a reason for the audience to understand Magneto’s motives. This script does no such thing for Grindelwald.
For a series all about magic, this chapter certainly has none of that in its writing. Diehard fans will defend it, and love it, as this movie seems to be made specifically for lore lovers. But those expecting an exciting new chapter in the Wizarding World could very well be let down, as the only real crime here is the movie itself.
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“Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald” is currently playing at the Riverside Cinemas, 1017 S. Boone St. in Aberdeen.
George Haerle lives in Cosmopolis and reviews movies for the Grays Harbor News Group.
