Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald Review

Fantastic Beasts: Desperate magic

The problem with sequels, prequels and spinoffs are they are heavily reliable on two things; to keep the originality of the story and then try to spring a few surprises. While the first part was a refreshing to take back the viewers on a ride back to the magic kingdom of JK Rowling, the second was far from convincing. The movie is solid and loaded with fun characters and sequences, but it's also a ride that is designed specifically to be enjoyed by those who have long invested their hearts into the Wizarding World. However, it's also a double-edged sword. While you also must admire the movie's commitment and confidence, it’s going to leave some crowds feeling like they are on the outside looking in.

The characters are launched around 7 decades before the Harry Potter fiasco started, the desperation on Rowling to connect Harry Potter, wizarding world and the fantastic beast’s franchise is more than just obvious. The movie begins with Grindelwald breaking out of a New York wizard prison by magical means; it is rather a confused break in scene as with the powers Grindelwald holds he could have used his magic to break out during the prison time, anyways let’s leave the logic for later. Then we hook up with Newt Scamander in London, where he's gone to meet up with his brother, Theseus. Soon he's huddling with the young Albus Dumbledore (Jude Law), who at this early point in his life is a Defense Against the Dark Arts instructor at Hogwarts. Albus gives Newt the heads up on Grindelwald, who's a very old acquaintance, and then dispatches Newt to Paris to find him—and to look in on the miserable Credence Barebone (Ezra Miller), a magically gifted orphan who longs to know his true origin.

Anything that comes out of the broader Harry Potter universe starts off at a significant advantage. There’s a passionate, built-in fan base, and, more generally speaking, magic is limitless fun. It’s impossible to watch any Harry Potter movie and not be a little swept up in the spectacle – the film’s first sequence, which takes place on a carriage as it flies through a thunderstorm is such a delightful watch, and in the desire to be able to live in that marvelous a world yourself. It just falters when the film makes obvious callbacks to the Harry Potter movies with musical or visual signs — when the thrill of those moments’ fades, you’re reminded of how much better those films were. In a nutshell, the references and desperate attempts to remind us of Harry Potter breaks down the film’s ambitious outtake which has the potential to perform on its own.

For Harry Potter and magic crazy fans, the film should certainly cater their mystic appetite, for the film has its share of abundant drench of VFX. Its easy to label this part of Fantastic beasts as strictly for magic, harry potter and wizarding world fans. Johnny Depp as the creepy Grindelwald is deep and plays an atypical villain, he is one of the good things that happened in this part with his sinister laughs and chaotic magic. Newt’s character is as always kept mysterious, the reluctant magician who can rise high above his capabilities but lurks behind and comes into the limelight only when there is a problem.

How Fantastic beasts is going to progress with a couple of more parts will be the key to Rowling and Yates’s decision making, for this part is surely going to receive the highest amount of criticism from Harry Potter fans and hopefully they take it in the best efficient way and take this franchise way forward with more magic and less boring events.

Verdict: Strictly for Magic and harry potter fans, the film has its amount of VFX but suffers on a weak storyline that depends too much on the HP franchise.