It is time to retire the Wizarding World
Harry Potter fever struck the U.S. throughout the early 2000s, and the pop-culture landscape changed immensely because of it.
Whether from the books or the movies, we all know who Harry Potter is, and those iconic characters seemed to live on much longer after their height of popularity. They lived on for so long, apparently, that six years after the final Harry Potter film premiered, a spin-off film titled “Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them” was released with some mutual cheers of excitement and groans of indifference. The film ended up being quite good, but then some seriously dark news surfaced after the film’s box office and critical successes: There would be five more “Fantastic Beasts” films.
Let’s just stop right there for a second. There were eight Harry Potter films released over 10 consecutive years that, to all differing levels of opinion, were all quite good. But the qualities of the films are not what is in question here. What is, however, is whether we should be given 13 total “Wizarding World,” as J.K. Rowling puts it, films. That’s a lot to digest, especially if you also count the seven novels.
It is beginning to look a lot like overkill to me.
I am a huge fan of everything Harry Potter, and I was excited to see this very expansive world continue even if I had some reservations about a Fantastic Beasts movie. Thankfully, I quite enjoyed the first film, and before the unfortunate news about four more installments was announced, I was looking forward to the inevitable sequel.
Leading up to its release, the pictures, trailers and teaser clips of the second film did not do a whole lot for me. I was just hoping that maybe they were just a little weak because the filmmakers wanted to keep the film mysterious, so I kept up hope.
The film finally premiered, and I reluctantly bought my ticket, ready to see what I was going to be getting myself into.
Two and a half hours later, I sat silent in the theater, trying to understand what I watched, not really believing whatever it was that I had witnessed.
“Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald” is one of the most disappointing films I have experienced in all my 20 years of living. Do not get that confused with being one of the worst movies I have seen, though. It was just immensely disappointing in every regard.
Nothing interesting happens in the film. The story is absolutely nonexistent, and these characters jump from one set piece to another without doing anything remotely intriguing. This bland character under-development continues the threadbare narrative, which, I’m guessing, was supposed to end with the big final “reveal,” hoping audiences walk out thinking this supposed dramatic display equates to a good film.
Well, it does not.
The big “reveal” is just lazy and a poor excuse to continue the narrative of a character I did not really care for to begin with.
For a franchise that boasts strong, memorable characters, this “Fantastic Beasts” film strands likeable characters in an aimless shock-value narrative, and I’m not buying it. Newt Scamander, the supposed main character of this new franchise, is barely in the film and is only defined by a lossless relationship with another character I have no interest in.
The final 20 or so minutes of the film presents a solid showcase of Grindelwald actually trying to be a little menacing, but then that is bogged down with a lazy “showdown” and a painfully out-of-character decision reeking of more bad screenwriting.
“Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald” does not just set up too much for the sequels to follow. If anything, it threatens them upon us.
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