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| Source: Starstills |
(may contain spoilers) A friend of mine got me a free ticket
for this. Otherwise, I would not have watched this continuation of the
Fantastic Beasts Harry Potter spin-off. Fair warning: my thoughts about this
are going to be just as jumbled as the film. Let’s start at the beginning. This
film set a new record (at the time of watching): it had me bored in under 3 minutes. The chase at the
beginning was so unnecessary. Why the hell should I, as an audience member,
care about some random dude fighting a daring escape from his prison? Sure, I know
it’s Grindelwald, the supposed villain of the movie – though we never really
learn what exactly these ‘crimes of Grindelwald’ are for which he was imprisoned – but honestly? A
mediocre, unnecessarily destructive chase scene is not going to draw me in if I
feel indifferent about all characters involved. This is a mistake many movies
make these days: they neglect to make audiences care first and impress second.
Everyone just wants to floor you with their special effects instead of the
story. Bad plan.
Anyway, onwards. The plot started developing marginally as the film progressed, though I felt like it still expected audience members to care too much just for the sake of it. There were just too many sub-plots of individual characters to follow. Overall, this thing was too long and convoluted with all that family bullshit. A bit like GoT, but dumber. It simply does not matter to me one iota who was who’s son/daughter/brother/mother/nanny whatever. And now there is another Dumbledore???
Granted, Jude Law was fantastic as Albus Dumbledore. I did not expect that at all. I would have seen him more as Grindelwald (What possessed them to cast Jonny Depp as Grindelwald, I do not know. Maybe he’s a wizard and put the casting director under Imperius.), but I concede that Jude was just the right kind of charismatic, charming, yet mysterious and pensive to be the big D. I liked that they broadly hinted at why Dumbledore would be so reluctant to fight Grindelwald, but the blood oath thing was just a lazy excuse so they would not have to come out and say that they were gay lovers for the longest time. That said, this story had such potential to become a real drama - an interesting parable about right and wrong, the concept of the ‘greater good’ that both Dumbledore and Grindelwald believed in, and two lovers caught on separate sides. It could have been a powerful movie about love not knowing gender, about following two young idealists and seeing how they set out on the same path, but how their ideas slowly develop into polar opposites even though they are based on the same concept... and how that ultimately tears them apart and makes them – reluctantly, on Dumbledore's side – into mortal enemies. Instead, this movie failed to explain the concept of the ‘greater good’ that the conflict was based on. Indeed, Grindelwald was the only one who mentioned it (maybe twice), but it seemed to be a line just to tick a box somewhere. It was never explained, and neither did I understand what exactly was so evil about Grindelwald in the context of this movie because they never really explained his agenda either. He didn’t make a whole lot of sense in his grand speech, but neither did the rest of the script – and if you have exposition like that, putting it at the beginning of the whole damn movie would be great.
As for the other characters: Eddie Redmayne is, frankly, wasted on Newt, but his young colleague playing the character in his Hogwarts days has real talent as well: he got Eddie’s mannerisms, which were developed for the role, down pat. Newt himself is clearly on the autistic spectrum, which is fine. It’s one of the few good things about this movie in terms of overarching, universal themes: it’s quite inclusive. It also has Queenie, the annoyingly dumb airhead, Jacob, a surprisingly likeable Muggle, and... who else? All the other characters were so forgettable, I don’t even know. Except for the black guy – but I only remember him because he was – completely randomly! – quoting Jesus’ dying words. What. The. Hell? Are American wizards Christians? (was the character even American?)
Visually, this had some pros (I really liked the design of the ministry and the Chinese dragon thing looked awesome!) and cons (generally overindulgent visual effects of sometimes questionable quality). The lighting was beautiful and they had lovely costumes. The editing, however, was a bit on the annoying side, a bit fast and with too many close-ups and not enough overview – and together with the mediocre (at best) script, things suddenly made sense during the end credits: directed by David Yates. I cannot, for the life of me, understand why JKR keeps working with the director who single-handedly managed to destroy everything in the HP franchise after movie 4. I just want to rip my hair out when I see his name. I love the HP series, but JKR has questionable taste. (oh, by the way, did I mention that my Scotish flatmate used to date her? The world is such a tiny, tiny place. Six degrees of separation and all that.) The score, after some starting difficulties, was great. Especially the final epic piece. The style seemed familiar – and that’s because it was James Newton Howard. Love the guy. Good to know he’s still around.
Bottom line, too long, too many complicated family trees, a wasted opportunity to tell a truly interesting story. I have no hope for the next instalment. 2/5
Anyway, onwards. The plot started developing marginally as the film progressed, though I felt like it still expected audience members to care too much just for the sake of it. There were just too many sub-plots of individual characters to follow. Overall, this thing was too long and convoluted with all that family bullshit. A bit like GoT, but dumber. It simply does not matter to me one iota who was who’s son/daughter/brother/mother/nanny whatever. And now there is another Dumbledore???
Granted, Jude Law was fantastic as Albus Dumbledore. I did not expect that at all. I would have seen him more as Grindelwald (What possessed them to cast Jonny Depp as Grindelwald, I do not know. Maybe he’s a wizard and put the casting director under Imperius.), but I concede that Jude was just the right kind of charismatic, charming, yet mysterious and pensive to be the big D. I liked that they broadly hinted at why Dumbledore would be so reluctant to fight Grindelwald, but the blood oath thing was just a lazy excuse so they would not have to come out and say that they were gay lovers for the longest time. That said, this story had such potential to become a real drama - an interesting parable about right and wrong, the concept of the ‘greater good’ that both Dumbledore and Grindelwald believed in, and two lovers caught on separate sides. It could have been a powerful movie about love not knowing gender, about following two young idealists and seeing how they set out on the same path, but how their ideas slowly develop into polar opposites even though they are based on the same concept... and how that ultimately tears them apart and makes them – reluctantly, on Dumbledore's side – into mortal enemies. Instead, this movie failed to explain the concept of the ‘greater good’ that the conflict was based on. Indeed, Grindelwald was the only one who mentioned it (maybe twice), but it seemed to be a line just to tick a box somewhere. It was never explained, and neither did I understand what exactly was so evil about Grindelwald in the context of this movie because they never really explained his agenda either. He didn’t make a whole lot of sense in his grand speech, but neither did the rest of the script – and if you have exposition like that, putting it at the beginning of the whole damn movie would be great.
As for the other characters: Eddie Redmayne is, frankly, wasted on Newt, but his young colleague playing the character in his Hogwarts days has real talent as well: he got Eddie’s mannerisms, which were developed for the role, down pat. Newt himself is clearly on the autistic spectrum, which is fine. It’s one of the few good things about this movie in terms of overarching, universal themes: it’s quite inclusive. It also has Queenie, the annoyingly dumb airhead, Jacob, a surprisingly likeable Muggle, and... who else? All the other characters were so forgettable, I don’t even know. Except for the black guy – but I only remember him because he was – completely randomly! – quoting Jesus’ dying words. What. The. Hell? Are American wizards Christians? (was the character even American?)
Visually, this had some pros (I really liked the design of the ministry and the Chinese dragon thing looked awesome!) and cons (generally overindulgent visual effects of sometimes questionable quality). The lighting was beautiful and they had lovely costumes. The editing, however, was a bit on the annoying side, a bit fast and with too many close-ups and not enough overview – and together with the mediocre (at best) script, things suddenly made sense during the end credits: directed by David Yates. I cannot, for the life of me, understand why JKR keeps working with the director who single-handedly managed to destroy everything in the HP franchise after movie 4. I just want to rip my hair out when I see his name. I love the HP series, but JKR has questionable taste. (oh, by the way, did I mention that my Scotish flatmate used to date her? The world is such a tiny, tiny place. Six degrees of separation and all that.) The score, after some starting difficulties, was great. Especially the final epic piece. The style seemed familiar – and that’s because it was James Newton Howard. Love the guy. Good to know he’s still around.
Bottom line, too long, too many complicated family trees, a wasted opportunity to tell a truly interesting story. I have no hope for the next instalment. 2/5
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