Why is this happening?
Because memes.
Oh, man.
Yeah, those keep showing up on my Google feed. I think RT is at 53% or something. I never look at RT, but those negative reviews were so common I had to go see. I haven’t actually read any of them, though.
I’m still wanting to see it. The first Fantastic Beasts was my favorite HP movie by a huge margin for a few reasons- 1, it wasn’t about insufferable children, 2, because of the period setting, and 3, because I didn’t have to deal with fans of the book telling me how much they left out. This seems to follow in all those trends, so I’m in.
Well, to be fair, they weren’t really “children” anymore by the last 2 movies…
The first Beasts movie really bored me, as it was just a whole lot of disjointed ideas and “world building” without any cohesion. Now these reviews proclaim that the first movie was a solid story and the second movie is all place setting “for things to come”. So that doesn’t sound promising (for me at least).
This seems to be a common problem with modern franchise movies where the creators set up lots of things in the first part and there isn’t much pay off before the last part and then that tends to be too rushed as they struggle with juggling character beats and story requirements with “the big showdown”.
Guess its also similar to the Hobbit movies compared to the Rings movies. Lots of characters and busy work, but no real heart or breathing room for any of the storylines.
I must be a total HP lore nerd, because I actually dug that a fair amount.
It does some fucky things with timelines and previously assumed well-established facts in the universe. Unsure if retcons, unreliable characters, or mistakes; either of the first two feels pretty okay for me, while the latter would be frustrating, as it’s a movie that definitely wants to hit you with its biggest revelations by making them so shocking for a lorehound.
Still, there’s more there to like, including a lot of glorious scenery chewing. But man I wish they’d dumped Depp; that guy really doesn’t need to be a leading man anymore :-/
I actually have some more complex thoughts about the villain but not easy to type from phone. Maybe tomorrow.
Alright fuck it, moderately cleaned up, spoileriffic thoughts that I originally chatted to my gf on the tragic failing of the villain’s arc in this pentology so far.
The real Crimes of Grindelwald lol
[In response to her dragging Depp’s performance as being typical of his don’t-give-a-shit money-grubbing turns as of late, nevermind the spousal abuse]
Yeah, Depp isn’t selling it. I also wish that the movie was willing to be braver with his portrayal of Grindelwald. For a LOT of this movie (and the last, I guess, in his disguise) he actually ALMOST seems to have some good points/reasonable goals, and it’s easy to see how he seduces the unwise with his rhetoric. That’s a really fascinating turn, obviously with the parallels to authoritarian populists all over the globe right now, but just for this universe in general (where the PURE BLOODS UBER ALLES messaging is pretty obviously coded as purely bad).
But because it’s still ostensibly a kids’ franchise (nevermind how grim and bleak pretty much all of the Yates-directed movies have been), they don’t want to make the villain too sympathetic. So, every 45 minutes or so, he’s just got to do something ludicrously OVER-EVIL to remind us that bad is bad. Obviously his initial murderous escape (complete with gleeful pet-tossing shitbaggery), but also goofy on-the-nose-evil shit, like bidding his followers to kill the baby of the family they offed early on in the movie. It would have been SO much stronger to have him stay his overzealous followers hand and do something truly malicious, like offer to raise the child as his own as a true acolyte of the faith, or whatever.
Similarly, and truly key here, in his big rally at the end, Grindelwald goes out of his way to portray himself as the “bigger” man than the obviously violent, fascist ministry goons trying to shut down their peaceful rally, and he even sends the crowd away believing his version of events after the ministry lackeys off a random woman who was lookin’ to get feisty with them. He’s successfully sold them on a vision of his vile racism that he paints as being far more progressive and welcoming than it truly is. He shows the evils of mankind laid bare, allowing the gathered wizards to feel it would only be right to take back the guiding wheel of humanity to protect Muggles from themselves. The WW2 imagery, the calls to embrace love and “separate-but-totally-equal” treatment of non magical folks, etc.; it was all masterfully done on his part.
At that point, with his speech finished and the ministry showing up and killing an “innocent” witch, Grindelwald’s literally already won the battle against these guys. BUT, instead of laughing at how perfectly they fell into his little trap and made themselves look like the real bad guys, he just had to summon up a bunch of gigantic, evil blue fire-demons to murder the shit out of everyone. . . in the entire city of Paris???
Like, I totally get that the movie wants us to feel like there’s an actual climax/ending with actual stakes to cap off this obviously the-second-part-of-five story, and also so their hilariously unnecessary Nick Flannel (shoutout Wizard People, Dear Readers) cameo can look badass for a sec or whatever. But another big battle of CG shit blowing up other CG shit (shout-out @Kelly_Wand) so that the world doesn’t end or what-the-fuck-ever is the exact OPPOSITE of stakes, and worse yet, it totally undercuts Grindelwald’s punishingly complete and absolute moral victory over the ostensible “good guys” at this point in the story.
In short, the movie would have been damned near perfect if Grindlewald wasn’t a leering, mustache-twirling villain the whole way through, and instead just played his true cards close to his chest and left you with this uncomfortable, sinking fear that maybe, just maybe, he was right about some things, and that maybe the Ministry wasn’t all they were cracked up to be. Let him seduce the audience just like how he seduces Queenie and Dumbledore and even Credence. Grant him his heinous victory in full on a meta-plot level (since, from the perspective of our character’s, he’s basically already got everything he wanted by the end anyway; the movie is a serious fucking downer, yo).
THEN pull back the mask in movie 3, or even 4, if you’re real fucking brave. Let the true ugly heart of his mission show itself at long last as the various heroes and side-characters he’s won over to his side must come face-to-face with the horrible evil they’ve been enabling this whole time.
But instead, the movie settles for something shallower than that, letting Depp just play the simplistic baby-murdering, puppy-kicking (well, lizard-tossing) “Evil”-dialogue-choices-in-a-Bioware-game villain. . . but still giving him more or less everything he wanted (with just a few minor handouts to the good guys to show us how they’ll pull this thing off over the next 3 flicks).
God, this would be so much cooler if they’d just written Grindelwald better.
Really enjoyed this. The effects were superb, plot was Rowling competent, and characters more fleshed out than the first movie. I didn’t like Newt in the first movie so much, and liked him in this one much more.
There’s a billion Harry Potter fans and I suppose different folks like it for different reasons. This movie touched on many of the notes that I like about that world.
I read one of the reviews posted above before going to see it. One suggested Rowling was falling into the same trap as George Lucas with his prequels. Bullcrap. I’m glad I read that review, because my expectations were low going in and I was pleasantly surprised.
Depp wasn’t as bad as I’ve read. Coulda been better, coulda been worse.
As an aside, the movie had a “special” preview for Aquaman. Damn thing gave so much away. Would rather have not seen that because the movie does look cool.
Saw it last night. Liked it quite a bit. In terms of story and direction, at least as good as a middle-tier Potter movie, but I prefer the characters here.
Some issues:
- The titular fantastic beasts are getting hemmed in, rather than being organic to the story.
- Not much humor (or jokes that only sorta’ landed).
- Not sure if I bought the turns for every character (particularly Quennie).
- Some rough editing and transitions where bridging scenes were obviously cut.
- It’s less approachable for those with a passing Potter-familiarity, such as myself. My daughter had to give me a debrief to catch me up on some bits and their relation to the Potter-verse.
- Feels very much like the middle chapter of a trilogy (in a good way), but there’s going to be five of these? C’mon. Should be one more and done.
I saw it last night. It was okay. Not terrible, but probably my least liked out of the Wizarding World.
I hated the whole storyline with Queenie. All of it.
The “fantastic beasts” bit just felt like the filmmakers have to check a box because that’s what the series is called. I don’t think Rowling really knows where she wants to go with that stuff. His suitcase is pretty much a plot freebie since he can just pull out a solution for any problem with a magic monster.
I agree with @ArmandoPenblade that the film is trying to make Grindelwald out to be some kind of charismatic master manipulator, but at the same time he’s being cartoonishly evil. You can’t have it both ways and work effectively.
I very much liked the glimpse of future horrors that Grindelwald used in his rally. Speaking of which, what was that spell at the end? Burn everyone with blue flame dragons? How is Grindelwald not the ruler of the world already?
And my question from the first film still stands: Why are wizards sailing on ships anyway?
Ugh, god, yes, that was just. Ugh.
Strong agree here, TF. A 5-part epic about the rise and fall of Gellert Grindelwald’s Wizarding World War is not the appropriate setting for “The Whimsical Adventures of Lovable, Maybe Somewhat On-the-Spectrum Newt Scamander and His Passel of Delightful Magical Critters!”
Hah, that was fucking hilarious. Dude just merrily tosses that out there wordlessly with a swish-and-flick and it takes like half a dozen powerful, trained, battle-hardened wizards to barely, just barely contain it? Hooray power creep :)
I dunno. Seems similar to Potter books where the biggest evil about to take over the world story is framed with kids going to school and playing broomstick games. Biggest difference I see here is that Rowling hasn’t connected Scamander to Grindelwald like she did with Potter and Voldemort. Hopefully she pulls something out.
The Queenie bit didn’t bother me as much. She never seemed very smart and her actions in that context seemed to have motivation (love) consistent with her character. She was certainly desperate from the beginning.
Also didn’t mind the spell strength. He is supposed to be a super strong wizard, with only Dumbledore being his match. I do question his motivation though and agree he should have just left.
Just came back from see this. I think overall I liked it more than the first movie, with some exceptions. I can’t remember the last time I saw Johnny Depp in a movie where I actually liked Depp in the role. The part with Queenie seems a little contrived but we learn early on that Grindelwald can cloud minds, the American Minister says that had to change his guard three times, and apparently that wasn’t enough.
I like Scamander in this movie, as we learn that he is more than just a strange beast lover, but pretty damn efficient on his own. I did think the twist near the end, combined with the final twist added a bit too much to the story, but it also gives direction to Grindelwald’s means of battling Dumbledore.
And yes, some wizards do seem terribly overpowered. Isn’t Grindelwald using the wand that Dumbledore eventually owns, and that Voldemort covets?
Yes, that is indeed the Elder Wand. Which, given the originals, is appropriate as we know Grindelwald at one point possessed it.
I felt this movie was far more exposition than movie, in many ways (which makes sense for a 5 - movie series, though it did make this installment a bit duller).
I like Grindelwald as a villain far more than Voldemort (in the movies). The movie Voldemort always struck me as rather pathetic and kind of stupid. Grindelwald seems far more devious and nefarious and ultimately, dangerous.
I also concur that we needed more fantastic beasts playing a role Though the niffler swiping the blood pact was pretty cool
I’ve always felt that the most interesting villain in the original series was Dolores Umbrage. Grindelwald is quite interesting and compelling in his own, though a bit undercut at the end.
But what makes him work is that his public presentation has a point, it’s almost worthy. Trouble is we know it’s insincere. But it’s certainly a nice idea to use someone to demonstrate the corrupting influence is more effective than outright evil.
But Queenie irked me something fierce. I mean Jacob has every right to be mad about using the charm to trick him into marriage, a marriage he wants but has good reasons to not want the risk, and her betrayal at the end doesn’t fit. Certainly her being tempted makes sense, but in the end where she turns away from Jacob to join Grindelwald who tempted her… so she could be with Jacob?
That moment made zero sense in context. Granted neither did multiple other characters. Jacob in particular was acting with what feels like audience POV knowledge, not his.
I don’t know if she (Umbrage) was the most interesting, but she certainly was the most fun (in the movies). From the original books, I actually liked Rita Skeeter as a villain a lot too - but she was pretty much edited out of the movies.
Personally I hated both those characters. I also think you were supposed to hate them.
As I mentioned above, I think Queenie is just under the influence of Grindalwald. We see early how both are able to use their “influence” to make people do as they want, and with Queenie’s ability to read minds Grindalwald has a reason to want to Queenie on his side. How he knew she had that ability I am not sure.
First movie was fine, but the second one was confusing and does not feel connected to the HP world.
Perhaps the best movie summary ever. If you watch nothing else, check out the last 10 seconds of this video remembering that the author has spent 27 minutes (deservedly) savagely ravaging this film.