I’m “biast” (con): hated the first movie; not a fan of Eddie Redmayne
(what is this about? see my critic’s minifesto)
Well, this is what sequels are supposed to be, right? More of the same thing you loved the first time, but also MORE: bigger, faster, brighter, scarier, funnier, musicier, more of whatever it was the defined the original. So in this respect, Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald is a successful sequel. It has taken all the things that Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them was and doubled down on them. This second in the promised five movies about Newt Scamander, wizard naturalist, is:
• MORE! incoherent than the first!
• MORE! confused about who its protagonist is!
• MORE! uncertain about why any character is present here, and what their narrative purpose is!
• MORE! crammed with contrivance and coincidence!
• MORE! plot than ever without any of that tedious mucking around with story
• MORE! noise and action and flashbang distraction with none of that tedious mucking around with emotional engagement!
• MORE! incentive to punch Newt Scamander in the face!
Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald is so intent on not making any sense at all that not only is the film more dedicated than its predecessor to ensuring that finding fantastic beasts has no bearing on anything, but also that whatever crimes Grindelwald may have committed are likewise entirely beside the point. The movie does open with Grindelwald escaping from wizard prison in 1927 New York, which is very likely a crime, but we don’t actually have any firsthand evidence of why Grindelwald is so bad in the first place that he’s considered the most evil wizard ever. (Voldemort hasn’t come along yet, of course. By the time he does show up in the Harry Potter books and movies, we knew quite a bit about him. Not knowing about him was never a problem earlier, because the stories did not revolve around him.) Quite literally, the phrases “fantastic beasts” and “the crimes of Grindelwald” and everything associated with them have absolutely nothing to do with each other here.
People — including the evil wizard himself — keep saying that Grindelwald wants wizards to rule over muggles, with Grindelwald himself at the helm of course, but people say a lot of things, and how would he achieve such a feat, anyway? As portrayed by Johnny Depp (Sherlock Gnomes, Murder on the Orient Express) — who hasn’t had any Depp charisma since at least Sweeney Todd — Gellert Grindelwald has none of the seductive charm we’re meant to think is how he pulls people under his sway, and yet for some reason a very tiny cadre of followers are in his thrall, and it’s considered by all a genuine threat that he might convince others to join him. (This is difficult to believe.) But even though he’s so powerful, for some reason he needs to find Credence Barebone (Ezra Miller: Justice League, Trainwreck), who is a special kind of wizard and very powerful himself, and who can help Grindelwald kill Albus Dumbledore (Jude Law: King Arthur: Legend of the Sword, Spy), currently a teacher at Hogwarts and the only wizard powerful enough to defeat Grindelwald. Barebone escaped from New York at the end of the last film and must be found by the good guys before Grindelwald finds him. And also the good guys must find Grindelwald. Dumbledore can’t do that himself for reasons we will learn later (and which are a whole huge other problem, not least because it should mean that Grindelwald wouldn’t be worried about any threat from Dumbledore at all).
So: “It has to be you,” Dumbledore tells Scamander (Eddie Redmayne: Early Man, The Danish Girl), but we never understand why: He’s a bumbling dork writing a book about creatures that even wizards think are weird. What possible reason could there be for him to be present in this story at all? Grindelwald isn’t, I dunno, harnessing magical creatures like those Newt considers his purview to help him take over the world or anything. (In my review of Beasts I called everything that Scamander did with his beasts and with the finding of them “almost literally” a sideshow to the main story, but those bits of plot derail here are literally literally a sideshow: one completely superfluous sequence takes place actually at a wizard circus-y sideshow.) And at no point during the course of this movie does Scamander ever do anything that convinces us that he has overcome the useless ineptness that characterized his klutzing around in the first movie, or to justify Dumbledore’s faith in him.
All of this occurs in maybe only the first 45 minutes of Crimes, so there’s still lots of more to-ing and fro-ing for the unsupportably long movie to do, and yet I’m already exhausted trying to make the convolutions of this plot sound halfway comprehensible. Stuff just happens, one thing after another, with little narrative unity, until the movie just stops. This isn’t a story. It’s J.K. Rowling — in her second screenplay after Beasts — writing her own fan fiction. Not the rare good fan fiction, but the kind that merely rambles on about unenlightening encounters between too many people that don’t move the story forward but supposedly reveal some smothered emotion that was, in fact, either already blatantly obvious or so woefully out of character that you cannot fathom what you’re watching. And everyone is someone else’s hidden cousin or former babysitter or secret crush or a surprise! appearance by someone who’s been name-checked in-universe before so why not get them onstage for a pointless cameo.
Special negative kudos to the movies for treating the female characters so badly, and in so many distinctly appalling ways. Which rather puts paid to the notion that all we need are more women writing movies to fix Hollywood’s misogyny. Witch Leta Lestrange (Zoë Kravitz: Gemini, The Lego Batman Movie) is nothing more than a pawn of the plot to bring together Newt, who once loved her, and his brother, Theseus (Callum Turner: Victor Frankenstein, Green Room), who is set to marry her, and give them some feels. Nagini (Claudia Kim: Avengers: Age of Ultron), a woman cursed to turn into a giant snake occasionally, is nothing more than one of those name-checked figures — she will, in the future, be Voldemort’s companion — and someone to stand sadly and silently next to Credence. Sweet Queenie Goldstein (Alison Sudol) of the first movie suddenly an abusive, manipulative partner to her muggle love Jacob Kowalski (Dan Fogler: Barely Lethal, Europa Report). Tina Goldstein (Katherine Waterston: Logan Lucky, Alien: Covenant), who is an Auror meant to be powerful both in a magical sense and an authoritative sense, does little but stand behind feckless Newt and take cues from him. (Newt and Tina are meant to have incredible romantic tension, but Redmayne and Waterston have zero chemistry together.)
Rowling is a terrific novelist; I’ve just finished the most recent installment in her series of Cormoran Strike novels, no-fantasy-involved contemporary detective fiction, and it’s so smart and so engaging that it’s difficult to believe that the same person also wrote this script. Except of course screenplays are a very different, ahem, beast, and you don’t catch a story in a script in the same way you catch one in prose. Returning director David Yates’s (The Legend of Tarzan, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2) messy and incomprehensible action sequences are regularly interrupted by long infodumps offering what is intended to be essential backstory, events with supposedly huge emotional impact, and instead of them being properly dramatized, everyone is just standing around talking about them in the past tense. Matters that are dangerously charged with racism and sexism are dropped in and land like the cheap, monstrous, unmagical tricks they are. Characters suddenly know things they couldn’t possibly know except that such information is vital to moving them along to the next plot point. The whole endeavor — in another doubling-down of the first movie — is so bent on keeping secrets that it fails to let us in on what’s going on at all. Though frankly, considering what we do see here, that might be a blessing.
see also:
• Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them movie review: reparo movens ad imaginem
I absolutely hated it, and I liked the first one. It feels like 45 minutes of movie bloated up into two hours of unnecessary exposition- it cannot be described how unsatisfying the ending is (never mind the ten-minute flashback scene where both characters turned out to be incorrect). I do like Newt, but his inability to talk to someone and say “I am not engaged” means that the biggest personal conflict is based on a newspaper misprint? My least favorite part was “Follow that feather!” because that makes NO SENSE in the wizarding world- why is Rowling just now coming up with super spells that allow you to track a person’s every move? I feel like this would have been helpful when stopping Voldemort.
“Not a fan of Eddie Redmayne” Out curiosity, what’s wrong with him?
I would go as far as to say that he’s worst actor ever to win an Oscar. In the first Beasts movie, Newt may have been written as a ‘quirky’ and ‘socially awkward genius’ – Redmayne plays him like a timid fourth-grader mocking a mentally handicapped person and feeling rightfully bad about it. One of the most annoying and irritating blockbuster performances I have ever seen.
He is a black hole of charisma. He has no personality onscreen. He’s beyond bland. He’s blah.
I’m sure he’s a very nice person, but he has no screen presence.
(see: Pratt, Chris)
(Yes, I’ve now officially overused that joke. I’ll stop now.)
I didn’t say Redmayne was the only movie star who suffers from this affliction.
Successful authors often publish a haphazard follow-up before their vision is able to refocus. They ignore/eliminate their editors and feel compelled to satisfy the disparate fanbase desires leading to bloat. What Rowling is attempting is even more difficult – moving from a genre and medium where infodumpage, verbosity and convolution are rewarded to one in which showing is more important than telling, less is more when it comes to dialogue/plot, and efficient use of time and characters is crucial.
As you state at the end of the review, it sounds as if she’s taking her skills as a novelist and unsuccessfully trying to force them to work in a screenplay, cramming an entire books worth of characters and story into a too-small package, a Reverse Hobbit of sorts. I’m not saying that a wildly successful author of sprawling novels for children can’t write a tight screenplay that appeals to adults in the absence of any meaningful pushback or criticism. It does sounds awfully difficult though (not that we all wouldn’t love to be given a chance to try it one day).
Also, at the risk of being accused of reverse-racism/sexism by angry strangers, I’m especially disappointed that a woman with her resources and apparent level of “wokeness” is still centering her plots on a bumbling white male dork who is the destined something-or-other while token nonwhite characters remain mostly irrelevant and unheard from. But that’s all a minor quibble if the story is as confused as most people say it is. I don’t even like most of the OG HP’s, so this is one’s going into the “not even on a long flight” pile. Hopefully, Rowling is a much faster learner than Lucas and gets some friends/coworkers who are willing to pour her some Tea.
(see: King, Stephen)
That’s a great example, although bloat is more forgivable in a book than in film when time is in short supply. I suppose there are plenty of moviegoers who can still enjoy a poorly structured movie if the special effects are spectacular/distracting enough. I wonder if anyone around Rowling read her screenplay and had the ovaries to (diplomatically) tell her it was a mess.
I would be curious to know whether she even *tried* to push for a new movie series that centered anyone other than a white boy/man, and was refused by the studios. (Though she’s so rich these days, should could probably write a check for the budget of these movies.)
But even she was stuck with a white dork at the center, she could have done much better with the supporting characters.
I suspect that as Producer, sole screenwriter, and J.K. mugglefucking Rowling, the WB execs let her do whatever the hell she wanted. Maybe a five hour supercut on the home release will provide partial redemption, although from the sound of things, there are so many side characters, potential romantic subplots, and needless cameos that doing right by all the supporting cast would be impossible in a single film. After reading a few reviews, I still don’t understand exactly what Scamander’s role is, what’s at stake, and what the story is about.
The movies so far do not understand what Scamander’s role is.
I agree that it’s very likely that Rowling is not being challenged by anyone. And given the financial success of these movies, it’s unlikely that she will be in the future. So we’re in for three more incomprehensible and bloated blockbusters.
Hated the first, had no interest whatsoever in watching the sequel.
Also, is it just me, or is Eddie Redmayne really eager to become the next Doctor Who? He’s got this whole David Tennant/Matt Smith thing going on in this franchise, and it’s so obvious it just can’t be a coincidence.
Redmayne thinks Scamander has a mild case of autism spectrum disorder. For what it’s worth, a lot of people on the spectrum apparently admire and identify with his performance in these two films. It doesn’t mean much to me if the movies are a jumbled mess, but I’m happy that they feel accurately represented. After reading a few reviews, I wish all five movies centered on Queenie with Newt as a sidekick – it would have potentially made the third film a lot more fresh and unique.
I’m on the spectrum myself, and that’s not a bad way to interpret the character. Too bad there’s nothing else about the films that holds my interest. It reminds me of how they portrayed young Clark Kent as a special needs child in Man of Steel. That too was the only promising aspect of a film with more property damage than five Godzilla movies.
I would have thought that everyone on Earth was on the spectrum, which is why they call it a spectrum.
Then again I once took an online test for this subject and tested further away from the “normal” end than I would have anticipated — which I found to be a surprise. I’m not officially autistic as far as I can tell and I’ve certainly spent enough time in hospitals during the last few years that it seems unlikely that any tendencies I had in that direction would have gone unnoticed. Then again I’m not as “normal” as I’d want to be — which, come to think it, explains a lot of aspects of my life.
The problem with the character isn’t Redmayne’s performance, it’s the lack of any reason at all for him to be the protagonist.
You could say that everyone in the world has “special needs,” but it wouldn’t be a particularly helpful thing to do.
Fair enough.
Jesus what an incoherent mess.
When I looked up this movie and your website name in Google, I was surprised that according to the search results you apparently gave this one five stars. There’s something wonky going on there.
Google does not know how to cope with .5 stars or zero stars. I have pointed out the problem to them, so they’re aware of it. It’s on them to fix it. I am NOT going to NOT give films .5 star or zero stars because Google is unable to parse them.