K E Y   P O I N T S

• The latest in JK Rowlings ever expanding wizarding world and the sequel to the hit ‘Fantastic Beasts And Where To Find Them’.
• All of the main characters from the first film return, even after Jacob Kowalski (Dan Fogler) and Credence (Ezra Miller) seemingly disappeared at the end of the original.
• There are many new characters introduced into the series including Jude Law as Ablus Dumbledore.
• The silver screen gets a passing glance at Hogwarts for the first time since ‘The Deathly Hallows Part 2’ in 2011.
• The story crosses the world from the USA, to France, Austria and the UK in the biggest insight into global magic ever shown. 
• The plot opens up the story into a much wider world than the first film and sets up the remaining three films in the five part series.

S N A P   V E R D I C T

Prequels set in an expanded universe are rightly viewed with some skepticism as simple money-making exercises that often lose the magic of the originals.

 

But after the success of 2016′s enchanting ‘Fantastic Beasts And Where To Find Them’, JK Rowling’s foray into a bigger imagined world lived up to expectations. So the bar was set high for the sequel, but ultimately it falls short.

 

The plot of ‘Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes Of Grindelwald’ centres around the hunt for Credence (Ezra Miller) who has made his way to Paris in an attempt to find out more about his family. Through a convincing introduction, all of the main characters find their way to France but when they get there things start to unravel.

 

Eddie Redmayne’s Newt Scamander is less the mad-zoologist-let-loose-on-the-world from the first film, and more of a steady hand in a world gone mad, and the Oscar-winner shines once again in the lead role.

 

At the same time, the collapse of Queenie (Alison Sudol) and Jacob’s (Dan Fogler) relationship over the laws restricting marriage between magical people and none-magical people adds weight to the age they live in.

 

But the new characters don’t reach the same heights. Leta Lestrange (Zoe Kravitz) and Yusuf Kama’s (William Nadylam) storyline and how it intertwines with Credence’s narrative is given a lot of air time, but is almost completely irrelevant to the wider story.

 

On top of that, Johnny Depp’s Grindlewald is always scheming in the background, creating a film with too many parts, jumping from one erratically staged plot line to another. Furthermore, some parts are left unexplained and others feel forced, making it hard for viewers to keep up.

 

To compound the problem, this is an out-and-out wizarding world story, which is packed full of fan service references to the original Potter films that only the most hardcore fans will understand, and that add little to the wider plot.

 

That said, there is still plenty to enjoy. Jude Law’s Dumbledore is a welcome addition and really lights up the screen – when he gets the chance. But ultimately there’s few opportunities to fully flesh out one of the most interesting characters because there is so much else going on.

 

In strong contention for most interesting character is Grindlewald. The producers have taken the wise decision to not make him as one sidedly evil as Voldemort. Instead Depp balances a character who is willing to go to extreme lengths to implement his ideology, but not alienate the world as he does it.

T A K E   H O M E   M E S S A G E

Somewhere in ‘Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes Of Grindlewald’ there is a good film, but there’s too much going on to appreciate what makes it great. 

T R A I L E R