Fantastic Beasts 2: The Crimes of Grindlewald (2018)

[Water Bottle]

 

Review the movie here.

[robertman2]

Felt Iron Man 2 in which it existed solely to set up future movies.

[filmlover]

As a fan of the Harry Potter series and someone who actually liked the first Fantastic Beasts, what the actual fuck was this mess? The plot is an incomprehensible jumble of things (even major fans of the series are likely to be lost by whatever is happening on screen), character actions make no sense at all (why does Queenie turn evil?!), there are so many characters that none of the actors get a chance to breathe (poor Eddie Redmayne's Newt Scamander ends up feeling like a supporting character in his own movie most of the time), and J.K. Rowling lays on the exposition so thick that the end result bores and causes a headache much more than it enchants.

 

What Rowling presents here are stories for multiple books, but screenplays aren't books, and without someone to guide her, the end result feels like at least six movies worth of material clumsily crammed into one. There are a few moments that work, but they mostly either serve to remind us of the much better Harry Potter series (the Hogwarts scene only made me wish I was at home doing a marathon of those instead) or that Rowling had decided what story she wanted to tell instead of throwing in everything and the kitchen sink. And I honestly can't think of a less interesting character to make the driving force of a series than Ezra Miller's mopey Credence.

 

Unless the next one is all about those Nifflers (those adorable creatures deserve their own Minions-esque merchandising craze), I have no desire to see one more of these movies, let alone three.

 

D+

[clockwork]

I found enjoyment in this movie, but understand why others won't/don't. Like many across the internet have said there is too much going on in this movie; too much jumping around to different characters, scenes that should've been cut and there are some scenes that should've been added to give more clarity as to why certain things happen the way they do. 

 

I think the acting ranges from fine to good, same for the dialogue as well. The production design is very solid as is the CGI and visual effects, although the big CGI fest in finale didn't need to happen and I hope the next movie dials down on that.

 

Ultimately I feel this movie was not the best it could have been, and I think Warner Brothers has some disappointment with this as well and hopefully some improvements will be made behind the scenes to make sure this situation doesn't happen again. Call me crazy but I will still stick with these movies for as long as they keep coming out because I do love the Wizarding World and it's magic hasn't lost it's affect on me yet. 

[Webslinger]

1 hour ago, filmlover said:

why does Queenie turn evil?!

There's seriously no explanation then? I bailed for the bathroom during the scene where Grindelwald's henchwoman brought her into their headquarters, so I just assumed they cast some sort of manipulative spell on her (Jacob alludes to something like this in the climax as well). Short of something like that, the complete-and-total shift in characterization makes no sense whatsoever.

 

I'll have more to say about this one later, but in a nutshell: it feels like the biggest cart-before-horse franchise-building miscalculation since The Amazing Spider-Man 2. Between the corners J.K. Rowling (of all freaking people) has painted this series into with this installment and the tepid box office returns thus far, I'd guess that the odds of a Fantastic Beasts 3 are 50/50 at best at this point.

[Rorschach]

 

While all the other films in this franchise have kept me thoroughly engaged, this felt like an extra long homework assignment to prelude the interesting stuff to come later down the line. 

 

That really disheartens me to say but that's just how I feel.

 

3/10

Edited November 18, 2018 by Rorschach

[filmlover]

15 hours ago, Webslinger said:

There's seriously no explanation then? I bailed for the bathroom during the scene where Grindelwald's henchwoman brought her into their headquarters, so I just assumed they cast some sort of manipulative spell on her (Jacob alludes to something like this in the climax as well). Short of something like that, the complete-and-total shift in characterization makes no sense whatsoever.

 

I'll have more to say about this one later, but in a nutshell: it feels like the biggest cart-before-horse franchise-building miscalculation since The Amazing Spider-Man 2. Between the corners J.K. Rowling (of all freaking people) has painted this series into with this installment and the tepid box office returns thus far, I'd guess that the odds of a Fantastic Beasts 3 are 50/50 at best at this point.

There is a scene where Grindelwald's henchwoman finds her outside the Ministry of Magic crying asking her if she's alright and has a place to go and then boom, that's it (edit: forgot all about said scene between Queenie and Grindelwald until I went back to read The Movie Spoiler for this because this movie is such a jumble of nonsense that I forgot portions of it - but even that made no sense). Such an odd route for Rowling to go for a character in the previous film who gave off zero vibes of having sinister inclinations.

 

Then again, this entire movie left me with a headache trying to make sense of everything that was happening on screen and how it fit anywhere within the already established Harry Potter universe. Very disappointing to see Rowling showing such disregard for her beloved franchise and turning it into a hollow shell of itself.

Edited November 18, 2018 by filmlover

[CoolioD1]

one of those pieces of franchise brand management that has too much going on and also nothing happens. maybe not the worst movie i've seen this year but certainly the least essential.

[John Marston]

so boring. Nothing happens, unnecessary retcons, way too much focus on Creedence and Leta and their family tree bullshit (the part where she was explaining all that stuff with the babies was just what?), a laughable twist (bet they thought they had the next Empire Strikes Back there). I liked the first one  but this was easily the biggest disappointment of the year

 

 

D

[filmlover]

Lol how bad was the Hogwarts moment where the students were told to go with McGonagall? You can clearly tell that moment was meant to make the audience go “ohhh” but it fell completely flat (at least with my crowd). This movie couldn’t even get its random moments of fan service right.

Edited November 18, 2018 by filmlover

[ShouldIBeHere]

Better than the first one, though the plotholes, fanservice, missing charm and useless focus on bad characters will always drag that series down. This is Grindelwald's and Dumbledore's story but somehow we have to know about lifeless characters that are sold to us as protagonists. 

 

Also, these first two movies should have been one movie at best. Or two different series set in the same franchise altogether. A Fantastic Beasts movie focused on Newt exploring the Wizarding World. And a series about the global wizarding war or whatever one calls it. Mixed together they do not really work.

 

But there was some promise in this one. More so than in the first one.

 

5/10

[ladyevenstar22]

as a potter fan its with great regret I give this a B-  and I'm being generous , my affection stopped me from giving it a C . So sure I missed the beginning up until the title but as I was looking for a seat my attention wasn't there .

 

At the end I went all that for that surely there's more right ? I also suffered from having not rewatched the previous movie before so I was a bit fuzzy on characters;

I agree previous was better / Newt has a brother whyyyy love triangle + 1 chick from NY WHYYYYY

 

NOT ENOUGH DUMBLEDORE  and trailer had me thinking we'd be seeing his sassy ass left and center  

By the by the highlight of this movie was having planted idea in my head that DUMBY AND GRINDY were A THING THING like KISSING under a wand tree ! I don't care if its not true I believe there is a tragic love story there we did not get and for which I would pay $$$ to see.

 

ABOUT QUEENY even though I got she was upset about not being able to marry her regular joe from there to take a leap and espouse grindy's pov , I didn't think she was that loopy , more the loveable harmless loopy type . 

 

why kill leta lestrange ? I'm so confuse I  wondered is she bellatrix but then she did a MJ noo maybe her mom who got married to a Black? guess not ...but bruh her "I love you" and camera pans to both brothers bwahaha...

 this movie was a mess not as much as a hot mess as HIGH LIFE I just came back from (a snoozefest and I love pattinson from twilight days when most people shitted on him as oppose to praising his work now but I digress...)

 

PS/NAGINI OMG THAT WAS NAGINI , yikes her neck oh well still ways to go keeping it lol but she wasn't hot on grindy but something happened for her to be ok with doing voldy's bidding hmmm . 

 

PS2 / for a movie called the crimes of grindelwald I was still wondering what crime he committed , they gloss over that ,was it a rating thing (Depp was pretty good all considered what little space he got for being title character pfff

 

please let them recenter 3rd movie on dumby & grundy a forbidden star wars love story PLEASE I am so here for that ! 

 

I will go back to see it just to be sure I feel same way or if blurry impressions from high expectations goes away !

 

i even went with my deathly hallows pendant and gryffindor scarf i got at the studio  tour visit in london boo...

Edited November 21, 2018 by ladyevenstar22

[BK007]

I'm a major Potter fan and quite liked the charm of the first FB but this gross is bloody deserved.

 

I don't think it is fair to dump blame at Yates' door per se, even if I'd like a new director on board. He has been underwhelming to good previously, but what really shows up here is Rowling's inability to write a screenplay.

  

She's a great author to many, but this sequel is a bridge too far. There is literally no point for this movie to exist. It is basically side plot galore and most of no consequence, now even if JKR used to that for her books, these aren't books. A movie can't survive on a plot where nothing of consequence happens. Even the most useless of blockbusters try to tell a story within the movie- CoG does not.

 

What does the film's story boil down to?

 

They try to make it about Credence and his heritage but who cares really? He mopes about and is a completely uninteresting character, though this is the fault of Rowling given that Newt is meant to be the main character.

 

But, is it about Newt? It certainly is not about Fantastic Beasts, which was an illogical franchise name if it was not going to be about them at all. He, too does nothing of consequence and barely grows as a character. Then again, it is also the fault of the script for giving him nowhere to really go and not much arc.

 

If not about the two, then it surely is about Grindelwald, whose name is adorned in the title. But beyond some rambling incoherence here and there, there is no emotional connection involved and thus, even if his stated goals are darker and more manipulative/convincing in a real world setting, he does not come close to the menace of Voldermort. Let's not even mention the "crimes" part, where he seems to go about trying to not cause any.

 

The last character it could potentially have been about was Leta Lestrange, and yet they botch everything up with such heavyhandedness and in the end, who gives a fuck about the reveal which is awful, her death which was unearned and the twist at the end, which was idiotic.

 

This is a story that is all filler, can't stand on its own as it's not about anything and probably the worst trend for franchises today. It's a good thing fans have responded badly to it because I love the Wizarding World, and this was a hackneyed attempt that doesn't deserve to stand on the same pantheon as the rest.

 

Hopefully it is a wake up call for all involved. I hope Rowling can put her ego aside, because the next one being of the same vein will kill the franchise for good. You could say CoG is the real killer, but as people have been hoodwinked into seeing it this time it'll make money, even if a very disappointing total. For all intents and purposes, it is though. Unless changes are made to how the movie is produced, written and possibly directed, the FB franchise will end with the next one.

[Webslinger]

A belated review - better late than never, I guess?

 

After delivering a first installment that mostly shed franchise-building in favor of a whimsical glimpse into another corner and period of her wizarding world, J.K. Rowling makes her first serious misstep in the Harry Potter universe with The Crimes of Grindelwald. Taken as a whole, the film is a disappointing mixed bag that tries to be several different movies at once – and some of these aspirations work better than others. This film is at its strongest when it focuses either on its new Hogwarts connections or supposed lead Newt Scamander’s beast-taming adventures (which are far fewer in number this time out). On the other hand, its attempts to use Johnny Depp’s villainous Grindelwald and Ezra Miller’s (apparently not dead) dangerously powerful Credence as catalysts for larger and darker world-building fall flat. One of the biggest problems at hand is that the plot is so overstuffed with scenes, subplots, and twists that are clearly only present to set up for future movies that the stakes for this movie feel too low to justify the increasingly dark tone this film tries to peddle; it’s a frustrating, self-sabotaging placement of cart before horse in the same vein as other overzealous franchise films The Amazing Spider-Man 2 and Batman v. Superman. It’s baffling to see someone with as much clout as Rowling – who could write any number of smaller, less crowded Hogwarts/wizarding world spinoffs and side stories, and who did such a careful job of world-building across the Harry Potter series – cramming so many half-baked, sequel-baiting ideas into one film. The film’s greatest sin in the casting department is Depp as the titular villain. Even casting aside the nasty allegations of domestic violence from Amber Heard and unprofessionalism on the set of the last Pirates film, Depp is woefully miscast as a villain who is clearly intended to be singularly intimidating; Depp just looks goofy in the makeup and his accent calls Jack Sparrow to mind instantly. Miller also feels stiff and out-of-place as Credence, as if he too can’t figure out why his character’s death in the previous film was retconned. Fortunately, the rest of the cast does their best with what little they have to work with: Zoe Kravitz has some genuinely affecting moments as new character Leta Lestrange (whose lineage is so curiously unimportant to her characterization that one wonders why Rowling made the association); Jude Law is so charismatic as a younger Dumbledore that I couldn’t help but wish he had gotten more screen time (and yes, he definitely plays the character as gay, even if the script is too feckless to say so); and the returning quartet have some moments that serve as effective reminders of their winning chemistry in the previous film, even if it’s ultimately undone by a baffling, unexplained shift in motivation for one of them. I went into The Crimes of Grindelwald excited and hopeful that Rowling and company would continue to use these films to explore stories in a wider universe unencumbered by the need to connect directly to the Harry Potter stories; unfortunately, this sequel accomplishes the exact opposite.

 

C

[Fancyarcher]

My review.

 

https://dailyuv.com/970753

[Kravetz]

I went in hoping to enjoy this film. I like the music and the production values,  I liked the returning cast (the few I remembered) but I couldn't get into this film and enjoy it for a few key reasons. 

 

First, I do not know the rules of the potter universe or the powers / limitations of the characters. Every time Newt needs to solve a problem he has an ability that allows him to accomplish it. Magic rules. He is never in danger, and he isn't striking me as a brave hero type. he just waltzes through the plot without ever showing signs that he is struggling to make it through the climax. 

 

Second, I do not know half of the characters that are prominent from the beginning of the film. I am either expected to know them (were they in the first film?) or just try to figure out who is who and what is what. I'm whisked away into this mission, Yes there is another who wants to rule the world, and rule the muggles and live openly.

 

Third, There is not discussion about the 'peace between us and them' nor do they delve far into the theme that the bad guy is appealing to many. The parallel with our life as hatred for muggles and mix blood is a great theme to make central. The policies that make the villain intriguing are missing.

 

Any details into the brothers are missing. They hug coldly, and polyjuice can be collected. they chase, They team up. then end with a warm hug. I liked that the film began with Newt blocked from travel. I saw the first film, but got little insight into the laws and the family dynamic. 

 

While it was nice to see Nick Flamel and younger staff at Hogwarts, ending with a new theme becoming front and center, that Dumbledore has a lost brother was nice, but their whole story seemed like a subplot that convoluted the direction of the story. Now it comes out that there will be more confusing films with young dumbledoor (gay?) in the future. 

 

It is a mess, but I do feel intrigued by the possibilities.