I rather enjoyed "Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them". It had its problems, but it was a fun little story, didn't take itself too seriously and, crucially, wasn't just a prequel to the Harry Potter series - although there were some ties in there, it was separate enough for me not to tar it with the "prequels suck" brush.
Unfortunately, "The Crimes of Grindelwald" very definitely is a prequel to Harry Potter - much more even than it is a sequel to "Fantasic Beasts" - and prequels really do suck. This one, in particular, is very much the "Attack of the Clones" of the series (which, as I've noted before, is my least-favourite Star Wars film). But where to begin?
(From here on out there are fairly significant spoilers. You know the drill by now...)
First up, I think, the returning characters. Our hero, Eddie Redmayne, remains fine as Newt - no complaints there. But then it goes horribly wrong - one of the real highlights of the first film is the interaction between the four main characters, and in this one they're barely ever on screen together. Tina barely features, and is mostly off on her own. Queenie and Jacob are now no longer having a cute flirtation, they're having tiresomely predictable relationship woes... for about five minutes, and then they're separated for most of the film. And with that, the heart that carried the previous film is ripped out.
On the other side, Ezra Miller does a surprisingly good job as Anakin, as he goes in search of his mother, only for her to be killed off and thus cause him the lash out at some Tusken Raiders. Those poor guys never get any luck. Fortunately, Padme is on hand to soothe his woes, although this time out she's less Natalie Portman and more snake-ish. Or something.
Technically, Johnny Depp is returning as Grindelwald, but given the size of his role in the first film I think it's fair to count him as being new. And on the other side, we have Jude Law as Yodaldore, busy teaching some young padawans Defence Against the Dark Arts. You know the stuff - handing them a lightsaber and/or magic wand at an inappropriately young age, teaching them object lessons that are likely to scar them for life, and then forcing them to go into a cave to face their worst fear. At least in sentences he speaks.
Okay, I'm being a bit unfair here. A more accurate comparison would actually be to Charles Xavier and Magneto in the X-Men films - two old friends divided by an insurmountable philosophical difference. The problem is that the X-Men films work because (a) Xavier and Magneto actually have time on screen together to debate their positions, and (b) Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellan are vastly superior actors to Depp and Law.
Beyond that there's not much to say. There's a cringe-inducing 'romance', there's a failed rescue (complete with joke about how badly it goes... but a less funny joke than in the noted comedy that is AotC), and then a final confrontation in an arena.
Here, to be fair, they surprised me. I had expected the film to follow the same beats as AotC, with our heroes having to face off against some Fantastic Beasts (possibly with Obi-wan Scamader using his abilities to tame one of those beasts?), followed by a 'rescue' by the other Jedi that leads to most of them dying, followed by the sudden arrival of Yodaldore to face off against Grindelwald in a CGI spectacular.
As it happened, though, it appears that they had used up their Fantastic Beasts by that point, so skipped straight to the Aurors arriving. And, meaning no disrespect, Callum Turner is no Samuel L. Jackson. (Also, Yodaldore was busy elsewhere, so instead the big CGI spectacular is provided by another character.)
Yeah, I think my version would have been better. Still not good, but better.
The other major problem that this film has, on top of all its other woes, is that it is very much the middle chapter in a not-trilogy. That is, it doesn't stand alone but mostly serves to move characters from the end of the first film to where they need to be at the start of the third film. The horrible thing there being that we're apparently getting five of these films, which leads me to fear that the next two will be yet more setting up for the big finale. In which case, a trilogy would definitely be better.
Anyway, that's that. I really can't recommend this film - watch the first one again instead, or even just something else entirely.
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