What crime has Gellert Grindelwald committed? If anything, the Ministry of Magical Filmmaking needs to conduct a full investigation into the “Fantastic Beasts” franchise. The second film in the set of “Wizarding World of Harry Potter” prequels lacks narrative cohesion and focus while delivering adequate marks on familiar action sequences and fan service meant to please the movie’s core audience.
“The Crimes of Grindelwald” tells the story of incarcerated Gellert Grindelwald (Johnny Depp) escaping the Magical Congress of the United States of America in his quest for power atop the wizarding world. Meanwhile, returning from his botched and calamitous trip to America, Newt Scamander (Eddie Redmayne) arrives in Europe answering for the destruction in New York before the British Ministry of Magic. Wizarding rebel and employer of children-to-do-a-wizard’s-job extraordinaire, Albus Dumbledore, implores Newt to illegally sneak into France to pursue Credence, the obscura (a mean, black cloud of destruction that can take human form sometimes) that wreaked havoc on New York City in the last film. Chaos ensues, and characters have to choose sides at the end of the movie: the establishment Ministry of Magic or a new world order with Grindelwald.
The new world order Grindelwald champions is simple: Take the wizarding world out of the shadows. He predicts and advocates against a second world war. He is pro-denuclearization. He supports wizards and muggles (non-wizards) dating and marrying. He’s anti-establishment. Simply put, Grindelwald, white hair coif and all, is a populist, progressive, wizarding Bernie Sanders. The establishment magical world hates him. And audiences are supposed to hate him, though in this film his highest crimes are escaping from his unjust imprisonment, driving without a license, and speeding in a horse-drawn carriage. He might have killed a person or two, but this is sort of a fruit of the poisonous tree extension from his unjust incarceration.
The entire series to this point struggles more generally to create audience engagement and plot tension. Prequels often have this difficulty, as audiences know where the characters are going. We know Albus Dumbledore survives any forthcoming tangle with Grindelwald, and we know most of these characters either die or are irrelevant come Harry Potter’s time. Rather than create an interesting story of character development or entirely different storylines, the film is mainly a series of segments that serve the sole purpose of fan service. There is more or less an Ancestry.com ad midway through the movie with a family tree growing out of a book — unhelpful, strange, but fans will say “oh look, that’s from the goblet of the order of the sorcerer’s stone.”
This isn’t the only flaw with the movie. Entire characters are just irrelevant or badly portrayed. Newt Scamander is acted more like someone with a slight social disorder than just a social outcast with a proclivity towards magical animals. Jacob Kowalski (Dan Fogler) is underutilized and serves no narrative purpose. Tina Goldstein (Katherine Waterson), a main character and love interest in the previous installment of “Fantastic Beasts,” is wholly unnecessary and seemingly written out of this film. The three characters that began the franchise are relegated to the background.
Over the holiday season, go see “The Crimes of Grindelwald.” You don’t really have a choice — there are going to be three more installments in the prequel canon. Hopefully 3, 4, and 5 will learn from the mistakes of this film, as “Crimes” was a mild improvement on “Fantastic Beasts.” There is still much work to do to salvage this series, as audiences will come away mildly confused and disappointed. Overall, “The Crimes of Grindelwald” is more misdemeanor storytelling than any feloniously compelling filmmaking.
Tyler Grant (@The_Tyler_Grant) is a Young Voices contributor, who completed a Fulbright Fellowship in Taiwan. He writes movie reviews for the Washington Examiner.
