REVIEW — “Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald”

I’ve been a huge fan of The Wizarding World of Harry Potter ever since I was a young boy. I begged my mom to let me see The Sorcerer’s Stone when I was only 6 years old, and after much persisting, she finally let me watch it. From the moment that Hagrid told Harry that he was a wizard and helped him escape from his mundane reality, I fell instantly in love with the world that J.K. Rowling created. As I got older, I saw every sequel and read every book of the series (even bought Deathly Hallows from Barnes & Noble at midnight) – as I’ve gotten older, my love for this franchise and the characters inside of it has never diminished. I’m mentioning all of this so that when I say I was disappointed with Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald, you know that I get absolutely no pleasure in saying that. Even as someone who enjoyed the first Fantastic Beasts film, I couldn’t get on board with a lot of the choices that were made in this film.

Crimes of Grindelwald once again follows Newt Scamander (Eddie Redmayne), the lovable, awkward magizoologist and his vast array of creatures that inhabit the inside of his magical suitcase. In an attempt to stop Grindelwald (Johnny Depp) from influencing pure-blood wizards to rule against non-magical beings, Dumbledore (Jude Law) enlists Newt’s help in the fight against him. There’s also a ton of other subplots in this film, but it would take forever to actually list them all down and try to explain how they connect to the central characters. This is part of why I found this film to be a mess, and easily the least enjoyable of the franchise thus far.