By: Keaton Marcus

Genre/Fantasy

Age Rating/12+

Lemonradar/41% sour

Introduction

Hi, this is Keaton Marcus from Sweet and Sour Movie Reviews and today I will be reviewing the newest installment to the Wizarding World saga, Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald. In the events of the first film, dark lord Gellert Grindelwald (Johnny Depp) was captured by the Ministry of Magic, but soon after, Grindelwald escapes his custody and seeks followers to destroy Albus Dumbledore (Jude Law) and to ensure that his mission for the purebloods to rule the earth over muggles is successful; Dumbledore reports to his most favored student, Newt Scamander (Eddie Redmayne), that Grindelwald is on the loose, Newt, Kowalski, Queenie and Tina must team up once again to face evil.

How Was The Cast?

The original Fantastic Beasts film was an enjoyable prequel to the legendary Harry Potter franchise even without having an ensemble cast, The Crimes of Grindelwald sticks to the same main characters, but adds many fresh faces which seems to be one of the film’s biggest problems; The sequel features actor Eddie Redmayne as Newt Scamander, Johnny Depp as Gellert Grindelwald, Katherine Waterston as Tina Goldstein while supporting roles include Jude Law as Albus Dumbledore, Alison Sudol as Queenie Goldstein, Dan Fogler as Jacob Kowalski, Ezra Miller as Credence Barebone and Zoe Kravitz as Leta Lestrange. As mentioned we saw Redmayne known for Jupiter Ascending, Les Miserables, The Theory of Everything etc. as Newt Scamander. In the first film, Redmayne was the most spectacular thing about the movie delivering a comedic and emotional performance while giving a very likeable charisma to the audience; In Grindelwald, his performance is respectively mediocre at best and while there lurk a few scenes of charm, almost the entire film, Eddie’s character is greatly misused by both director David Yates and writer J.K. Rowling, having to trudge in a horrifically bad script, while being surrounded by a whirlwind of new (and poorly executed) characters and surprisingly choppy action sequences. Overall, Redmayne has delivered many Oscar-worthy performances in the past, this however, is not one of them. Secondly we saw actor Johnny Depp known for the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise, Alice in Wonderland, Murder on the Orient Express, Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, Into the Woods, Rango etc. as Gellert Grindelwald. At the end of Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, we finally see Grindelwald in his true form, featuring Johnny Depp as the iconic villain, perfectly leading audiences for a sequel; Even though in Crimes of Grindelwald, we get to see much more of the titular character, Depp delivers terribly, splotching on an unidentifiable accent, a ridiculous (and unintentionally funny) costume and hair-due, all while being pounded down by a incoherent story, poor direction, writing and heavy production cost which is more than enough to trample the ever-so-talented Johnny Depp into oblivion, however, one compliment was the truly awesome quote of “I hate Paris” at the end of the film which at least captures Depp’s tendency to make the audience laugh (if that scene was even intentionally funny); Overall comparing Depp’s Gellert and Fiennes’ Voldemort is like contrasting The Phantom Menace and The Empire Strikes Back. Thirdly we saw actress Katherine Waterston known for Alien: Covenant, Logan Lucky, Mid90s etc. as Tina Goldstein. In the first movie, all though arguably a supporting role, Waterston playfully delivers a well-scripted and directed role actually forcing audiences to think about her as a main character, as much as Newt Scamander, which tends to be rare these days; After giving terrific outings in both Alien: Covenant and Logan Lucky in 2017, the actress needed another good role, when I first noticed that Waterston would be returning to the Wizarding World, I was expecting another solid performance, the result was painfully disappointing, giving the actress a lame part to work with, a lack of chemistry between Tina and Newt and pretty much drenching the talented, young actress in stock characters. Supporting roles were exceedingly well-cast (but misused) featuring actor Jude Law delivering ho-hum performance as young Dumbledore (much less convincing than Gambon’s version), terrible chemistry between actor Dan Fogler and actress Alison Sudol (pale compared to the first film’s charm) and disappointingly stiff performances by Ezra Miller and the talented Zoe Kravitz as Credence Barebone and Leta Lestrange.

Quality

Directing the film is acclaimed filmmaker David Yates known for directing most of the original Harry Potter franchise films including The Order of the Phoenix, The Half-Blood Prince, The Deathly Hallows P1+2, The Legend of Tarzan, and of course the original Fantastic Beasts film. Starting the film was a beautifully filmed, epic chase scene that was actually decently directed, but as the film goes on and the story becomes more confusing and incoherent, while adding more and more disappointing performances. Although this muddled sequel features visually dazzling special effects seen commonly in most Potter films, the brains’ spell was much weaker and less effective than previous installments, marking the first negatively-reviewed film in the Wizarding World saga. What was most missing about the film was “fantastic beasts”, and besides a couple nostalgic scenes with the Niffler (Newt’s cutest beast), there is nothing to love here. Special effects wise, the film stands at an official production budget of 200M, marking one of the highest costs in the franchise, The Sorcerer’s Stone (125M), The Chamber of Secrets (100M), The Prisoner of Azkaban (130M), The Goblet of Fire (150M), The Order of the Phoenix (150M), The Half-Blood Prince (250M), The Deathly Hallows P1 (250M), The Deathly Hallows P2 (250M) and, of course, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (180-200M). Although the story, performances, directing and script writing suffer from stiffness, the special effects and CGI flash are something to love in The Crimes of Grindelwald, using creative visuals, amazing set-pieces and the beautifully filmed beginning scene to make the film a dazzling, but brainless and senseless exercise, which is considered a disappointment compared to the original franchise. Storyline wise, although the film looks pretty, but is chaotic, confusing, loud and a complete mess which leaves you coming out the theater dreaming of a refund; In a literal sense, the sequel has no story (at least not a good one), or plot to really keep the audience's on the edge of their seats as they were in the original(s).

Aging ‘Grindelwald’

Darker than some of the earlier installments, The Crimes of Grindelwald has some strong action sequences, potentially creepy moments, common PG-13 rated language and some flirting, but what really will have kids running from their seat is how bad the quality is. The violence includes a weird, creepy appearance for Grindelwald, there is a short sequence of World War II with shooting, killing etc., of course there are magical-related action sequences, later on in the movie Aurors get burned by blueish fire (including one of the main characters), and there is a couple of threatening beasts. Language wise there is common mild language, but it should not be a problem for older kids, however, maybe the younger kids should skip this one; Sexuality wise, despite many scenes of flirting between Tina and Newt and Jacob and Queenie, there is no actual “sexuality”.

Fantastic Beasts Comparison

Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald 30% sour

Violence: ⭐⭐⭐⭐☆

Language: ⭐⭐☆☆☆

Sex: ⭐☆☆☆☆

Age Rating: 12+

Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them 73% sweet/sour

Violence: ⭐⭐⭐⭐☆

Language: ⭐⭐☆☆☆

Sex: ⭐☆☆☆☆

Age Rating: 12+

Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald 30% sour

Storyline: ⭐☆☆☆☆

Cast: ⭐☆☆☆☆

Role Models: ⭐⭐⭐☆☆

Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them 73% sweet/sour

Storyline: ⭐⭐⭐☆☆

Cast: ⭐⭐⭐⭐☆

Role Models: ⭐⭐⭐☆☆

News Related to Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald

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