Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald

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Allow me to begin with the fact that going to see this was a last-minute decision, the day I went to see it. I didn't bother re-watching the first film, and that may have been responsible for me not being able to follow this one very closely. So, I'll be fair in admitting that this review isn't gonna be up to the best of standards, but I'll do my best.

The film opens in 1927, as the notorious criminal, Grindelwald (Johnny Depp), makes a pretty badass escape during a transfer between the Magical Congress of the United States of America's (MACUSA) New York prison and London, where he is to be tried for his crimes in Europe.

Meanwhile, Newt Scamander (Eddie Redmayne) is trying to retain his international travelling rights that were revoked after the events of the last film, taking place in New York. After that, it's a whole big back story reunion of characters I don't know or remember, plus the return of Jacob Kowalski (Dan Fogler)and Queenie Goldstein (Alison Sudol), among others I had since forgotten about from the last film. To be fair, the last time I saw it WAS two years ago, in theaters. But I digress.

To shorten a fairly complex intro, basically, Dumbledore (Jude Law) makes a return here, and persuades Newt to find Creedence Barebone (Ezra Miller), who, Grindelwald believes, is the only person who can kill Dumbledore - a man Grindelwald considers his equal. Meanwhile, Grindelwald is kinda goes Voldemort (but not to such a degree) in the attempt to have Wizards take things over. If Voldemort was Hitler, Grindelwald is... Magneto? Yeah, we'll go with Magneto.

Onto some criticisms, one thing I DO remember, was Jacob being "obliterated" (losing all memories of something) at the end of the last film. The excuse is that it only gets rid of bad memories, and Jacob only had good ones. The problem being, this basically means that Hermione's parents must have hated her or something, because Movie #7. To be perfectly fair, I MAY have missed a loophole, but really, it felt like a sort of cheap excuse to bring those beloved characters back. But I guess it worked well enough 'cause they are still all-around likable characters. In fact, I'll hand it to everyone's acting throughout this, because all of that magical charm is still there. It's just roughly written and often confusing (at least for me - again, I should have re-watched that first one).

To be perfectly honest, missing stuff or not missing stuff, this is probably the least favourite of mine throughout the whole Wizarding World franchise. In my defense of not seeing the first one again before going, and forgetting much of it, what about some of the newcomers out there? There won't be much of a hint of exactly what's going on if you haven't seen the first, and that's a little less forgiving here because this is a film-only franchise. The 'Harry Potter' franchise had its original books for reference, so I consider it to be a little bit of a different monster. An honest-to-God recap at the beginning probably would have been enough.

Now, to say something positive about a film from this universe (because I still dig this universe), again, the magical charm we've come to know and love is still abundant here. The familiar characters are well-portrayed, and it's probably a perfectly good treat to those who have seen and loved the first one of these a few times since its release. As a 'Harry Potter' fan, I appreciated a lot of it, but as a movie fan, it felt like a bit of a mess when it was all said and done. I didn't hate it, but I didn't love it.

2/5

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