Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald
by J.K. Rowling
Full disclosure: I did not read the entire screenplay of Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald, and I won’t. That’s right, I’m using my viewing of the movie to inform this review, and I refuse to shell out money to endorse this venture further. I’d like to comment on the story-telling, and I have a lot to say.
The Crimes of Grindelwald is the second in an emerging “Fantastic Beasts” franchise that’s serves as both a prequel to J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter series and as an extension of the Harry Potter world. Having read every Harry Potter book and watched every movie, I feel more than qualified to weigh in on this fictional gargantuan. Furthermore, I’d like to state that anyone, no matter how versed in Harry Potter, has a right to their opinion as well. With all that said, The Crimes of Grindelwald has some of the worst story-telling I have ever witnessed.
When Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them movie was first announced I was pessimistic at best. On the surface level, the movie, especially with the lack of a preceding book (no, the “textbook” doesn’t count), seemed like a ploy for easy money, playing on a nostalgia and manufactured mania for the Harry Potter books. Which it was. And the pandering was made even more evident by the rushed announcement of a 5+ movie franchise. So far we don’t know how many of these movies we will get because after viewing the first and second, it’s clear that the overarching plot is so brittle and uncollected that it’s impossible to predict, even for the author.
In Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, we see Newt Scamander coming to America with his magical briefcase containing a multitude of fantastic beasts. The animals are undisputedly the best part of the movie, but get pushed to the side fairly quickly and given all the importance of the waving snail in Adventure Time episodes, a welcome addition but hardly a plot.
The first movie attempts to string together the fantastic beasts, Newt, the other three protagonists, an American magic governing body, an abusive anti-witch orphanage, a mysterious force disrupting the city, a troubled teen, a red herring, scary kid songs, two sets of flirtations, a senator(!), alleyway conversations, bad haircuts, averted eyes, and a climax so cluttered and busy that the protagonists have little to do. Did that seem like an unnecessarily long list? I think so too, unfortunatly the screenwriter didn’t stop to think so.
I had to be clear about fantastic beasts and where the bar is set for The Crimes of Grindelwald, for the second movie takes on more than it let’s go which creates a warped, bubbly mess of ingredients that could never coalesce into something edible for any movie goer, old or new. Trouble was inevitable when trailers pointed to the inclusion of Dumbledore, Newt's brother, Next's ex, two new city settings, a barrage of weak callbacks to the original series, Grindelwald, Nagini, Credence's emotional baggage, Lestrange ancestry Credences ancestry, 3+ unfulfilled romantic pairings, and more useless wizard history than even Hermoine would care to know.
It’s a dumpster fire that prioritizes trivia over plot, and when the plot lines are looked at objectively, it’s easy to see that for the most part nothing actually happens. I went back and forth about how to sum up the plot of The Crimes of Grindelwald, and it makes me mad because it’s not nearly as clear as it should have been. Here’s how I would sum up what Rowling likely meant for the movie to accomplish:
Credence has become the most important person in the wizarding world. He has the power of an obscurist (magic suppressed in childhood that manifests as a dark, unfettered power that often kills its host), and a rumored parentage that could have serious ramifications. Credence searches for the truth of his biological family while Grindelwald works a subtle maneuver to get Credence on his side to reinforce his power and take down Dumbledore. Therefore, the ministry has a hit on Credence, wanting to extinguish the threat altogether. And Dumbledore, Newt, and Tina try to find and appeal to Credence in order to keep him alive and away from Grindelwald. It’s capture the flag!
This plot could have been fun and easy to understand, but was bogged down by needless lore such as Leta Lestrange's family story. Rowling must have wanted to include more factoids and teasers about the wizarding world more than she wanted to tell a cohesive story. There is plenty of room for everything in a book, but with a movie there simply wasn't time. The Harry Potter movies' story-telling success came from skilled screenwriters Steve Kloves (1–4, 6–8) and Michael Goldenberg (5). They knew when to omit details in favor of a strong movie plot, and for that I am very thankful. But for The Crimes of Grindelwald Rowling took the reigns and left us with a terrible movie that no one could possibly follow.
With this screenplay, Rowlings shows her laziness by deciding to further her money-maker without taking the time to author any new books or at least, as Ron says, "Sort out her priorities". She proves that she'd rather not write a new story but rather supplement her old one. And, she commits egregious plot mistakes such as mismatched timelines in order to provide all flash and no substance. Characters like Newt, who are set up to be the main characters are superseded by the Dumbledore/Grindelwald showdown, but Rowling seems to deny the demotion. Precedence means nothing to her. She changes the rules of the previous movie to serve The Crimes of Grindelwald by restoring Jakob's memory and bring Credence back to life (two important details to the ending of Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them), demonstrating that she will make up and remake whatever narrative she wants.
I loved Harry Potter and still do, but now I have lost all respect for Rowling as a writer. I know she has talent, but she's coasting, selling out, and trodding on her old works in order to twist all the money she can out of her past accomplishments. Her vanity and pride prevented a potentially great story being told. I personally would have preferred if it was just a story about Newt and his animals, trying to educate the wizarding world about them and being a real hero in the most Hufflepuff way possible. So, to cap off this anger fueled review, I will thank J.K. Rowling for one thing... and one thing only.
Thank you for teaching us how to handle manipulative books;
