Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald is the tenth movie in the Harry Potter universe, and the second installment of the Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them section of said universe. It was directed by David Yates (who was also at the helm of Order of the Phoenix, Half-Blood Prince, and both Deathly Hallows movies), and written by franchise creator and all-around awesome person J.K. Rowling. It stars mostly recurring cast members, with a few new additions, including: Eddie Redmayne as Newt Scamander, Dan Fogler as Jacob Kowalski, Katherine Waterson as Tina Goldstein, Alison Sudol as Queenie Goldtein, Johnny Depp as Gellert Grindelwald, Jude Law as a young Albus Dumbledore, Ezra Miller as Credence Barebone, among others. If you know me in real life, you'll know that I'm a huge Harry Potter nerd. To say that I was looking forward to this movie would be the understatement of the century. And did it live up to the hype? Well, yes. Yes, it did. And, yes, I am aware of the #KeepTheSecrets that's flying around on Twitter. On the one hand, I want to honor it, but, on the other, I can't really review this movie without going into spoilers. So, and I cannot stress this enough, don't read past here if you haven't seen this movie yet. Thank you.
This movie was awesome! I don't exactly know where to start with the review, so I'll talk about the actors. They do a very good job. Newt is still as adorkable as ever, Ezra once again did a good job of conveying the conflicted "Who am I" vibe of his character, Queenie goes through a very powerful love arc throughout the movie that Alison Sudol portrays exceptionally, Jude Law is very charming in this movie. Out of all the great performances, two actors in particular stood out to be more so than the others. One of them is Dan Fogler. He really blew me away with his performance, even more so than in the first one. Fantastic Beasts 1 did a good job of portraying Jacob in a fish-out-of-water story as a Muggle in a world of Wizards, but The Crimes of Grindelwald takes it to the next level by allowing Fogler to really show off his acting chops now that Jacob is familiar with the ways of the Wizard. Dan really shines in this movie, pulling off his scenes where he's under an enchantment by Queenie with aplomb, and really getting the chance to go all out in the third act. He's still the best part of the movie. The other actor that stood out above the others is Johnny Depp. He is a great villain. Yeah, he went through a real life controversy following the announcement that he'd be returning for this sequel (that I will not be going into), but I didn't let that deter me from the potential that he could bring to the role after being just weird in the first one. He really stepped up from his debut scene. He owns every scene he's in in this movie. Me personally, I felt that this movie did a great job of establishing Grindelwald as a formidable Wizard, and it's mostly thanks to Depp's performance.
As per the usual with Harry Potter-related movies, the special effects here were sublime. The CGI magical creatures Newt cares for, once again, look beautiful. The Niffler and Bowtruckle are still adorable, and this sequel introduces a couple new, downright majestic, creatures. One of them, apparently known as a "Zouwu" is a beast that looks like a elephant-sized cat with the tail of a huge bird. That probably isn't a good explanation, but it looks incredible nonetheless. This movie also sees a return to Hogwarts in two of the scenes, with one of them giving us a sweeping shot of most of the outside of the castle. It still looks just as epic as it always did. And the effects for the spells, like usual, look great, but it looks like it was given an improves redesign for this movie. Not saying that's a bad thing, though. Quite the opposite, actually, these spells look incredible. There's a scene near the end when Grindelwald summons a blue fire phoenix thing that is apparently big and powerful enough that it's able to completely obliterate Paris if it isn't stopped. It looks really pretty. And the way that the heroes stop it is awesome, too. Tina, Newt, Thesus, newcomer Yusuf Kama, and Nicholas Flamel slam their wands into the ground and create a beautiful, orange earthquake shield that slowly subdues the fire phoenix. I'm making it sound so not cool here, but I can't possibly do it justice by just describing it. It's awesome.
I'm gonna go on record and say that this is the darkest installment in the universe. Like, sure, Goblet of Fire saw the return of Voldemort and the murder of a fifteen-year-old. But Crimes of Grindelwald had two instances of baby killing. Yes, Deathly Hallows: Part 1 saw an actual war breaking out at Hogwarts. But Crimes of Grindelwald had Johnny Depp give a dictator-esque speech about cleansing the world of non-Pure-Blood Wizards complete with visions of nuclear war and Holocaust imagery. The dark tone of this movie is present from the very first scene. We're told that a man had his tongue cut out, Grindelwald looks like the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come, three powerful wizards are murdered by being partially drowned and then blasted out of the carriage, Gellert summons lightening to take out more of his pursuers, and the whole thing takes place at night. This is before the title of the movie is shown, proving from the get-go that Grindelwald is not someone to be trifled with. I can only imagine that the Fantastic Beasts story is just gonna get darker and darker from here. I hope it does. We're promised a Dumbledore vs Grindelwald battle that we don't get in this movie, but we most likely will in the fifth movie. That is going to be awesome when it finally does happen.
Jude Law was a great Dumbledore. I think he perfectly captured the spirit of a young Richard Harris. There's also a sweet scene where we see Albus looking into the Mirror of Erised and seeing Grindelwald, which hints at his canonical homosexuality from the books. And the rest of the "young character" actors were great, too. We get a flashback to Newt's time at Hogwarts, and I honestly didn't know that young Newt was being played by a different actor until we got a good look at his face. He had his mannerisms down to a T, and even did a good impression of him. That flashback also had a young Leta Lestrange that was great in the role. Both versions of Leta were really good in this movie. This movie is awesome, but it isn't perfect. All of my criticisms are very minute stuff, though, so nothing too bad. For example, what in the name of Merlin's beard was Grindelwald wearing? He looks like the frontman for an 80's grunge band. I enjoy everything about him except for the Matrix trenchcoat he's chosen to sport for his adventures. And the Wizarding World tag that we see after the Warner Brothers logo felt very forced, in my opinion. It's not because I'm one of those "Ugh, another cinematic universe?" type of people, cause I'm not. It's because the Harry Potter franchise already did a good job of establishing itself as this vast universe, it didn't need a tagged on Dark Universe title slapped on to it. It still doesn't, honestly. But the Wizarding World logo looks cool, so I can't complain too much.
But, as I said before, I don't have very many criticisms. This was a very solid sequel. It took some twists that I didn't see coming, had Harry Potter fanservice mixed in with the cool new additions to the story, and it had one of the most intense finales I've ever seen in a Sci-Fi movie. A theme throughout the movie is Credence's backstory, and, when it's finally revealed, it blew me away: He's a Dumbledore. I will admit, it is kinda confusing when it's first presented, cause we aren't told exactly how he's related to him, but I'm hoping it'll delve more into it in the future movies. And the third act is really dramatic and intense. Grindelwald calls for his followers to come to the cemetery and then he gives them this terrifying speech about the dangers of Muggles and their warfare techniques. It's chilling. Then he sends his followers away to prepare to war, sets fire to Paris, Queenie turns on her friends and sides with Gellert, and Leta sacrifices herself so her friends can escape the cemetery, dying in the process, in a truly tragic scene. It's acted beautifully, the cinematography of the act is stellar, everything about comes together perfectly for it.
I greatly enjoyed this movie. It was a solid sequel, that I highly recommend. Whether you're a longtime fan of the franchise or a newcomer, there's enjoyment to be had. I'm gonna give Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald a 9/10. It's really good. A little too much baby murder for my liking, but I still had a great time with the film. If you have the time or the opportunity, go see this movie. You won't be disappointed. Most likely. Lots of people don't like the fact that Johnny Depp is still in the series given the allegations against him, but others don't mind him still being there. I personally didn't wanna let one shady cast member stop be from seeing this movie, so I didn't. Yee.
