The narrative thrust of the film enters “Han’s last name is Solo because he was traveling alone at the time” territory, and veers into the fan fiction-esque bent of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child. That tendency to retrofit the wizarding world cripples The Crimes of Grindelwald in other respects, too. And that’s not even touching on the film’s reintroduction of Nagini as a Maledictus, which has been the subject of controversy due to the way her new characterization seems to play into harmful stereotypes (as well as the fact that Nagini is played by Korean actress Claudia Kim, despite Nagini being a Sanskrit name, and the character herself apparently having Indonesian origins). Lest that analysis seem a little too serious for a film in which statues come to life and horses fly, it’s worth noting that, since ending the Harry Potter book series in 2007, Rowling has continually tacked on details to her work (e.g., Dumbledore’s sexuality, Jewish students at Hogwarts) that come off as backdating her level of social consciousness - rather than simply admitting that such things might not have occurred to her at the time, and course-correcting going forward. Zoë Kravitz as Leta Lestrange, and Johnny Depp as Gellert Grindelwald.
Newt Scamander (Eddie Redmayne), who hems and haws about joining the fray, is told by his brother Theseus (Callum Turner) that he must “choose a side.” As true as it is that inaction is, in and of itself, a form of action, any attempted depth by Rowling (who wrote the screenplay) is scuttled by late-game twists that seem to ask the audience to empathize with the wizarding equivalent of Nazi sympathizers and collaborators. After a laughably short imprisonment, wizard-Hitler Gellert Grindelwald (Johnny Depp) is back on the loose, and once again shoring up support for his crusade to rid the world of non-magical peoples (aka “no-majs” aka “can’t-spells”). That shallowness is echoed by the film’s attempted political allegories. The flourishes that would distinguish the film, once again directed by Potter series stalwart David Yates, are obliterated by its finale, in favor of an as-yet untitled sequel.Īs it turns out, the true crime of Grindelwald was wasting the audience’s time. Rowling tends to retcon her own work, and the overwhelming effort exerted to set up a third Beasts movie. Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald, a follow-up to the 2016 Harry Potter prequel Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, manages to replicate some of the first movie’s charm - the beasts are pretty fantastic - but it wrecks most of that goodwill by succumbing to the cumbersome (and ultimately counterproductive) way in which J.K.
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