First Take: Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald- is the magic even there anymore?

Spoiler free as usual. Because even reviews can be misinterpreted by Muggles.

SYNOPSIS:

When rumour has it that Gellert Grindelwald is heading to Paris, a young Dumbledore enlists the help of former student, Newt Scamander to stand against one of the most dangerous wizards of all time.

And so we have the difficult second movie in the Fantastic Beasts franchise- it’s more of a European adventure than electric boogaloo on this one. The same core cast and crew are back, with a few extra people involved this time round- unfortunately, lightning simply doesn’t strike twice, as this latest instalment to the Wizarding World isn’t anywhere near as enjoyable as the original 2016 film.

David Yates is back to direct, and once again, he does a semi-decent job juggling the CG setpieces and live action elements to deliver a pretty well paced 2 hours 13 minutes of… hang on, PLOT PROGRESSION? It’s obvious J.K Rowling’s script was written to plant the seeds for the 3rd film, and this is the big issue I have with this film, as it just feels like a big vat of nothingness, with zero stakes, predictable outcomes, and characters who will obviously not play that much of a role relegated to supporting credits. I will admit that

Philippe Rousselot’s cinematography gets better on each film he does with Yates, and James Newton Howard delivers a pretty workable score considering the nature of this sort of film.

Performance wise, the returning cast of Eddie Redmayne, Dan Fogler, Katherine Waterston and Alison Sudol continue their good form in this universe (alongside a solid piece of work from Ezra Miller, to say why would spoil a MAJOR reveal in the film’s final minutes), and once you add Jude Law as a very convincing Young Dumbledore, Zoe Kravitz, Claudia Kim and Cornell John, you have a pretty damn good cast… oh hang on, I smell controversy. Johnny Depp is Grindelwald. And he isn’t good. Fans of the books will enjoy this film without shadow of a doubt, but the casual cinemagoer will struggle to get into this film.

THE VERDICT

Crimes of Grindelwald is another paint by numbers film that is merely more exposition for a trilogy of films- there is nothing of note aside from the performances. It’ll open well, and then start dropping off week by week, and considering the amount of marketing Warner have done, this could sting them hard.

RATING- 3/5