Harry Potter is a cultural phenomenon. It is everywhere still to this day and has taken its place in the pantheon of pop culture on the same level as Lord of the Rings and Star Wars, and very deservedly so I may add. I am definitely not a self-proclaimed Harry Potter nut like many people are today (Star Wars is my particular poison of choice), but I would be lying if I said that I was not a Harry Potter fan. I am a big fan of the books and also a fan of the films although I think that the films definitely have their flaws, and even some of them aren't very good. However, my level of fandom meant that when the new Fantastic Beast series was announced I was very indifferent to the idea. I knew a lot of people who were really excited, a lot of people who were apprehensive for the film, I was very much in the camp of not really caring. But I still went to see the first in the series, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (2016), and it was perfectly fine. I don't think I have thought a single thing about it since, but I remember enjoying it. Not the sequel though. Not Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald (2018). This film can go fuck its self. The film follows on from the original with Newt Scamander (Eddie Redmayne) being asked to find and kill Creedence Barebone (Ezra Miller) before Grindelwald (Johnny Depp) can convince him to join his fight to rid the world of non-magical people. Newt refuses but is convinced to go by Albus Dumbledore (Jude Law) who is unable to fight Grindelwald himself for some unknown reason. He travels to Paris with Jacob Kowalski (Dan Fogler) in tow, ho himself is looking to find his estranged girlfriend, Queenie Goldstein (Alison Sudol). Whilst there they meet up with Alison's sister, Tina (Katherine Waterston) and a whole lot of magic ensues. This description of the film may be half arsed, but honestly if I tried to tell you the whole plot, we'd be here all day because it is convoluted to holy hell.
Okay, I will now talk about the positives of the film, and you may be surprised to find that there is actually quite a lot of positives to the film. First thing go mention is that it is well made. The special effects are all great and never look particularly unbelievable where they easily could have done. The set design is fantastic as it is across the board in the Harry Potter films and it was nice to go back to the physical Hogwarts sets again. Some of the creature design seems a little lazy but it still looks good and some of the creatures are really cool looking and well designed. The film is also well acted, mainly because across the board they have hired good actors for this series. Eddie Redmayne is good again as the quirky magizoologist Newt Scamander and is fun to watch. Johnny Depp as Grindelwald doesn't bring any houses down with his performance, but he is pretty decent at playing the manipulative and evil villain. The best performance in my opinion come from Jude Law as Dumbledore. It is a big role for him to fill and I felt like he did a good job at playing what a young Dumbledore may very well have been like. Sophisticated and empathetic but with an air of arrogance and smugness about him, and I was always happy to see him pop up in the film as he was in my opinion the most entertaining part.
Now, before I go into what I dislike about this film I will put a warning here. This part of the review will contain spoilers. I always try to avoid spoilers in my reviews, but I need to air my grievances with this film. Also, if you are of a nervous disposition or can't bear the thought of someone not liking something Harry Potter related you may want to stop reading now because I am going in and I am going in hard. With that said, I will give you two more sentences to stop reading. You still have time to stop. Don't say I didn't warn you. Okay, here goes. The writing of this film is some of the most boring, convoluted, contrived writing I have seen in a long time, and to top it all off it feels like utter fan fiction bullshit, but it just so happens to be written by the original author herself. The whole script feels like it is just written not to make a good and compelling story but just, so Harry Potter fans can go "Oh my god that’s that person/thing from Harry Potter! I know what that is, and I love this film because it said something/has a character I know from Harry Potter". The most heinous of these crimes are with the introduction of Nicolas Flamel for reasons of who fucking cares, but he is the philosophers stone guy, so this must be good writing. What is even worse though is the fact that Nagini is in this film. Yeah, you know Nagini, Voldemort’s Snake. Although she’s not a snake, she’s a fucking human. Bet you didn't see that one coming, Of course we didn’t see it coming because its fucking stupid, and the character of Nagini herself adds so little to the film that she is obviously just been put there as fan service. Also, not as heinous a crime but still annoying, is the fact that because we are in a world where magic exists, we should just except everything without explanation, like magic detective vision. Yeah, bet you didn’t know that was a thing. Honest to god detective vison with footprints and holographic visuals of past events. Fucking kill me you contrived lazy writing shit. And the final nail in the coffin is the set up for the sequel and the answer to the problem of Dumbledore not fighting Grindelwald is given to is by that fucking Niffler thing. It somehow manages to steal the blood oath necklace from Grindelwald and get it to Newt, except no, that mole shit should be fucking dead. The writing is so bad in this part that it shows the Niffler escaping Newts bag and then just has it show up again with the plot device necklace. Not showing us how it got it. Not showing us how it survived the basically nuclear magic war which jsut happened. No, it just got it. Its magic, fucking deal with it. It is so lazy and contrived and I fucking hate it. And breath.
This film is going to make a lot of money and there is going to be a lot of people who really like it, and honestly if I hadn’t written this review, I probably would have gone my whole life thinking this film was just fine. But as I was discussing it with my cousin in preparation for writing this, I just realised more and more how little I like it. Admittedly it looks very nice. It has great set and costume design and the CGI is all done very well. No one really puts a foot wrong in the acting department. But it honestly just feels like fan fiction bullshit and I hate it for it. Just so many little things are just thrown in there to get a positive reaction out of an audience who love Harry Potter. It is the laziest and most contrived form of writing and I just can't stand it. But I feel like I will be in the minority with this one. I think a lot of people are going to love this film, and all power to you. If you are a Harry Potter fan you should definitely see this film in cinemas because it will give you what you want. But it is really not for me and as it stands may be my least favourite film of the year so far. I will give the film this though, it makes me appreciate the Harry Potter films a lot more than I did.