Image by Vinson Tan ( 楊 祖 武 ) from Pixabay When the Harry Potter series came to an end in 2011, the future was uncertain for this cinematic world of wizards and witches. But only two years later, Warner Brothers announced that the original author of the “Harry Potter” book series, J.K. Rowling, would make her screenwriting debut by adapting the 2001 fictional guide book “Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them” (which Rowling herself wrote) into the first film of a trilogy set in this newly-christened Wizarding World. Working with Rowling is David Yates, who returned to direct the project after doing so for the latter four Harry Potter flicks. Rowling’s story would follow Newt Scamander, a magizoologist who “wrote” the guide book about magical creatures. And nearly a decade after this announcement, the third film of the Fantastic Beasts premieres this weekend with supposedly two more movies on the way. Unlike the Harry Potter series which greatly defined my moviegoing childhood, these films have all come out in my twenties and thus I lack any nostalgic attachment to them (this will almost certainly become clear in my reviews of them 😊). What are my thoughts on the Fantastic Beasts movies? You’ll have to keep reading to find out. So, without further ado…LET’S GET STARTED! Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (2016) Upon seeing the first film of the Fantastic Beasts series in theaters, I found myself feeling satisfied and mildly entertained but by no means impressed or blown away. That being said, whenever I’ve gone back to watch it I end up liking it a little bit more. That being said, it is undoubtedly a flawed movie. What I surprisingly enjoyed the most on this rewatch of Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them was the series’ willingness to explore the society and culture of wizards and witches outside of Britain. Perhaps it’s my bias as an American, but Rowling and Yates fleshing out the noticeably more prejudiced and paranoid attitude of the magical community in a different place and time makes for some solid world-building after the Harry Potter series. In the film, we see how the MACUSA (Magical Congress of the United States of America) operates a more ruthless bureaucracy with regards to protecting the secrecy of their community from the “No-Maj” American society during the Jazz Age. It is this paranoid and close-minded political structure that serves as the central obstacle for our protagonist Newt Scamander (Eddie Redmayne), a British magizoologist traveling to New York City under suspicious circumstances. As the audience’s conduit into the wizarding world of 1920s America, Redmayne (in my humble opinion) pretty quickly draws the audience to him as an offbeat, socially awkward fish-out-of-water wizard with a passionate heart for magical creatures and a charming skepticism for human behavior and motivations. Furthermore, I appreciate Rowling differentiating the protagonist for this series from the titular hero of the Harry Potter series. Whereas Harry was a child consistently ignorant of the world of magic for much of his journey, Scamander is a full-fledged adult that’s also a fairly competent wizard able to outsmart others, escape sticky situations, and (mostly) hold his own in a fight. While I think I like Redmayne as Scamander more than many fans, what I cannot deny is who the best character of the Fantastic Beasts series is: the non-magical war veteran and aspiring baker Jacob Kowalski (Dan Fogler). Much of the entertainment value of the movie comes from seeing Kowalski’s shock at the capabilities of Newt and the other companions they meet along the way—ex-Auror Tina Goldstein (Katherine Waterston) and her mind-reading, free-spirited sister Queenie (Alison Sudol). Fogler’s career history in comedic roles works to great effect here, as his experience seeing magic done firsthand makes for some of the best levity in a movie that could otherwise be overly dour and dramatic. Before I get to my criticisms of this movie, I do want to shoutout something that most people either ignore or deride. In the wake of the sequel, I really appreciated Rowling and Yates favoring a subtle approach in foreshadowing the greater conflict of the series involving dark wizard Gellert Grindelwald (Johnny Depp) and his rise to power. Instead of overstuffing the scenes with excessive exposition, the filmmakers allow the relatively insignificant story of Scamander running around New York City to recatch his magical beasts to breathe on its own for the essential character work needed to make us invested in the main story in the first place. While I do overall enjoy Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, there are some important flaws to point out that make the movie too imperfect to hold a candle to any of the Harry Potter flicks. First and foremost, Rowling’s screenwriting talents seem to lack talent when it comes to balancing tone from one scene to another. In other words, it can be quite jarring for the viewing experience to go from watching Newt seduce a magical creature with a mating ritual to seeing orphan kid Credence Barebone (Ezra Miller) be abused by his adoptive mother and anti-witch fanatic Mary Lou (Samantha Morton). While not as detrimental to the movie overall, this problem will only get worse in the next installment of the series. Furthermore, I continue to be disappointed by the Grindelwald twist in the climax on each rewatch of the movie. Simply put, I think Colin Farrell’s more withdrawn and subdued performance as turncoat Auror Percival Graves (secretly Grindelwald) a welcome addition to the Wizarding World. And being reminded in the end that Graves is merely an illusion stings with each repeat viewing, but it hurt more than expected this time around. After Farrell’s superb turn in the supporting role of the Penguin in Matt Reeves’ The Batman, I just wish Warner Brothers had stuck with Farrell for the entire Fantastic Beasts series. These underwhelming elements make the main plot of the movie pale in comparison to just watching Newt, Kowalski, Tina and Queenie run around New York City chasing magical beasts. Unlike the compelling mysteries, dramas, and action-centric narratives of the Harry Potter series, this story of the “Obscurus” (which I still don’t really know exactly what that is) and Graves/Grindelwald’s desire for it (and thus Credence) remains an unsatisfying mystery to me. Put together, these weaknesses do not fully sour the inaugural entry of this prequel series but they do shine a light on the undeniable lack of quality in comparison to the Harry Potter movies. On its own terms, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them is a decent enough movie for its entertainment value if nothing else. But it’s certainly not the strongest opening to a new series of Wizarding World movies. At the same time, it benefits from not being The Crimes of Grindelwald. ☹ Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald (2018) Ok, so the sequel to the first Fantastic Beasts is not utterly irredeemable to the extent I thought it was after first seeing it back in 2018. That being said, it’s still pretty bad. But I want to start with the positives before just completely trashing what makes this movie a failure on virtually every level. Maybe this is an unpopular opinion, but I find Eddie Redmayne to be consistently solid in his performance as Newt Scamander. Is he the ideal action hero or the most talented wizard ever? No, but that’s why (in my humble opinion) he’s a pretty compelling protagonist. Whereas the first movie highlights Newt’s unyielding protective instinct towards magical creatures in opposition to the ignorant, unsympathetic nature of most other wizards, The Crimes of Grindelwald aims to fill in his complicated relationships with friend and unrequited love Leta Lestrange (Zoë Kravitz) and Theseus Scamander (Callum Turner), Newt’s accomplished older brother and Leta’s fiancée. While not done perfectly, it was clear on a rewatch of the film that Newt was one of the few returning characters who received some semblance of adequate character development. Aside from just his story, I do think Redmayne is doing his damnedest to put some heart and passion into his character in even the subtlest ways. From some of his awkward facial expressions to fill up silence to the utter disrespect he shows his wand (like putting it in his mouth or holding it like a pencil), these little touches are the things I noticed and enjoyed whenever the overbearing, exposition-heavy plot of the movie isn’t putting me to sleep. Speaking of returning characters, I went into this rewatch of The Crimes of Grindelwald fearful of how I’d receive Johnny Depp now that he was full-fledged portraying the famous evil wizard Gellert Grindelwald. While his performance was neither disastrous nor transformative, I do appreciate how the movie fleshes out its titular villain’s motivations and grounds them in something believable. Essentially, Grindelwald defends his extremism towards the non-magical community and its magical sympathizers by expressing his desire to prevent another global conflict even worse than the First World War. Thinking back on the Harry Potter series, Voldemort never really had any stated motivations for his actions beyond enslaving the wizarding world under his control. In comparison, it’s refreshing for the villain to be more political in nature and work behind the scenes rather than always be on the front lines like a soldier. On a final positive note, it felt right for The Crimes of Grindelwald to return to Hogwarts if mostly for some character-focused flashback scenes. Not only was it nice to see a young Newt and Leta as friends being taught by a young Albus Dumbledore (Jude Law), but it seems fitting for a movie franchise that wouldn’t exist without the Harry Potter series to pay homage to the central setting (essentially a major character in its own right) of that series that so many fans of the Wizarding World adore and uphold. Unfortunately, I don’t have much more positive to say about The Crimes of Grindelwald. So, without further ado, let’s get into all the things that make this movie (mostly) irredeemable mediocrity. I said before that I thought Newt Scamander benefited the most in terms of character development. There’s a caveat to this, which is that director David Yates and screenwriter J.K. Rowling simply don’t devote enough time to the love triangle between Leta and the Scamander brothers to make the audience greatly invested in the drama of it. Instead, it ends up feeling like more of an afterthought due to Yates and Rowling preferring to focus on the Grindelwald plot. That being said, at least Newt gets some semblance of meaningful screentime. Tina Goldstein, on the other hand, lacks much attention at all for the first half of the movie and when she does join up with Newt and the others, she’s barely a presence in the group (even though one of the emotional cores of the movie’s narrative is her sister turning to the dark side! Like, what?!?). Which gets to the straight-up bad subplots of The Crimes of Grindelwald. I simply don’t know what Yates and Rowling were thinking in developing Queenie and Jacob’s “complex” romance other than recognizing the fact that Dan Fogler is undeniably the fan-favorite character of the Fantastic Beasts series. Thus, instead of letting his story arc in the first movie reside on its own terms they decide to reverse his memory loss from the climax of the first movie and have Queenie put him under a love spell so that she can marry him against his will. Not only is this an example of lazy screenwriting to bring a fan-favorite character back in a movie where he really doesn’t belong, but it also completely tramples on the minimal development Queenie had before. Whereas in the first Fantastic Beasts movie she was a kindhearted and empathetic witch, in this one she turns into a lust-crazed sociopath who somehow doesn’t see through Grindelwald’s violent nature (despite being a Legilimens, or having the ability to read minds!) and decides to join him out of her desire to marry Jacob AGAINST HIS WILL. I mean did Rowling just completely forget what happened in the movie right before this one and decided to simply create all-new characters with the same names as before?!? Speaking of the characters, I was really hoping to see more of Jude Law’s take on Dumbledore than what we received in The Crimes of Grindelwald. He was enjoyable in the handful of scenes we had with him, but I really do hope that the third film can make Law’s casting worthwhile because so far I haven’t seen nearly enough to be truly impressed. And what I have seen is more serviceable than amazing. Perhaps the bigger problem with this film, however, is the plot in general. Even if the characters made poor decisions and lacked sensible motivations, maybe I could’ve forgiven all of that if the overarching narrative was handled gracefully or expertly at all. Alas, it is not. Rowling’s lack of screenwriting experience is front and center here as the film’s three-act structure goes from dragging-your-heels boring to crazily rushed and stuffed full of needlessly complicated exposition that it leaves a bad taste in the audience’s mouths by the time the credits roll. The first act reintroduces us to the returning characters and brings a bunch of brand-new characters―from the French=Senegalese wizard Yusuf Kama (William Nadylam) to the cursed woman-turned-snake Nagini (Claudia Kim) ―who just don’t get enough screentime to make us care about them. On top of that, we get the interweaving family trees that relate to the mystery of Credence’s true name that culminates in one of the most baffling examples of “tell, don’t show” that I’ve seen in a big-budget movie like this in the past decade. Not only does the reveal about Leta and Yusuf’s connection (or lack thereof) to Credence nonsensical, but it’s also about characters that WE DON’T CARE ABOUT! There’s a lot to complain about when it comes to the movie, but I’ll end it here with the tone. Despite the first Fantastic Beasts movie having some jarring scene transitions, it was mostly never distracting enough to take you out of the story. But in this movie, Yates and his creative team cut back and forth between such tonally different scenes constantly that the audience can never truly give themselves over to the story. Maybe this is surprising to Yates and Rowling, but when you cut from the whimsy of Newt tending to his magical creatures to Grindelwald’s henchman murdering an infant, it makes it rather difficult for your viewers to fully latch on to the story that you’re telling. This issue with the lack of a consistent tone is even more apparent when considering how much Jacob takes a back seat in the movie. Other than his bickering with Queenie in the first act and their reunion in the third act, all he does is follow Newt from London to Paris without saying or doing much of note. With the major source of comic relief from the first film largely stripped of his comedic presence, The Crimes of Grindelwald is a distinctly rote movie in the Wizarding World without any genuinely distinctive identity to speak of. Instead, it feels more like a needlessly dark and dour movie lacking virtually any of the magic of the Harry Potter series or even its predecessor in this series. God, I hope The Secrets of Dumbledore is better than this. Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore (2022)
[NOTE: This blog contains spoilers for “The Secrets of Dumbledore.” You have been warned.] Walking into the movie theater on Friday night for my showing of The Secrets of Dumbledore, I was expecting to be disappointed. However, I also tried to remain open-minded and cautiously optimistic due to the early buzz around the film being an apparently vast improvement over The Crimes of Grindelwald. And by the time I left the theater, I ultimately felt deflated and exhausted with this series and wishing that it would just end. While I do agree that the movie is superior to its predecessor from four years ago, there are still some pretty glaring problems that have plagued the Fantastic Beasts franchise since its conception back in 2016. To begin with the positives, the intervention of Steve Kloves (The Fabulous Baker Boys, Wonder Boys), who wrote all but one of the eight Harry Potter films and produced the first two Fantastic Beasts films, proves beneficial here. Rather than Rowling struggle alone writing another political thriller set in the Wizarding World, Kloves’ guiding hand seemed to focus her storytelling instincts on streamlining this movie’s three-act structure so as to avoid the audience ever feeling lost or confused by the sequence of events of the movie. Surely, this is a low bar. But it doesn’t take away from the fact that such intervening tastes in screenwriting were desperately needed here after the atrocious example set by The Crimes of Grindelwald. In terms of the characters, some of the best scenes of The Secrets of Dumbledore were between the title character himself (once again played respectably by Jude Law) and Newt Scamander (with Redmayne’s third turn as the character). Seeing their friendship deepen and develop beyond Newt feeling like Dumbledore’s errand boy was refreshing, and Scamander’s empathy for Dumbledore (something he tends to show almost exclusively towards magical beasts) was particularly poignant during the scene in Hogsmeade when Dumbledore shares the story of his sister Ariana’s tragic death with his former student. Of course, the most noticeable different within the cast here is Mads Mikkelsen taking over the role of our villain, Gellert Grindelwald, from Johnny Depp. Not only does his performance feel more mature and restrained than Depp’s, but I am glad that Mikkelsen ended up being the actor to share several scenes with Law in this story. Essentially, it’s these three actors―Redmayne, Law, and Mikkelsen―that seem to be capable of carrying the emotional burden of Rowling’s (supposedly) five-film saga going forward. Unsurprisingly, my favorite character continues to be Jacob Kowalski thanks to Dan Fogler’s consistent talent for embracing and exemplifying the whimsy of the Wizarding World. Nearly all of his dialogue in the movie is genuinely funny, and easily the best writing overall. While his storyline lacks any emotional drama or substance to speak of here, I just appreciate seeing Fogler get work in a big-budget flick such as this where his lovable, charming personality can be seen by the world. At this point, maybe it sounds like I really enjoyed The Secrets of Dumbledore. But now I must address the several problems on display here that hold this movie back from the adequate entertainment value of the first Fantastic Beasts film (let alone the good to great storytelling of the Harry Potter series). So, let’s dissect what are (in my humble opinion) the biggest issues with the movie. First off, the first hour or so is SO. DAMN. BORING. Even after the lackluster scenes which bring Dumbledore’s team of spies together close out on the train, the missions that they go on lack urgency and feel as if they’re written simply to take up time before the finale. This points to a larger issue with the overall plot: why should the audience care about Grindelwald’s plotting behind the scenes of the wizarding world’s politics if we haven’t really seen the situation on the ground to explain why anyone supports him in the first place? To be invested in Grindelwald’s pursuit of power, the filmmakers have to prove that the forces he’s fighting are worth empathizing with and that his allies in his cause are worth rooting against. But, at the end of the day, I just feel indifference. Simply put, the film notably lacks any really “thrilling” components to justify its existence as something even close to a magical spy thriller. And a lot of my indifference is due to the fact that I care little about the fates of (most of) these characters (let alone the ones whose names I barely know, if at all). So when the movie finally ratchets up to its third-act showdown between Grindelwald and Dumbledore’s people, barely anything has pulled me in to the essence of the conflict in order to make it intriguing or thrilling. However, I could somewhat forgive these problems if The Secrets of Dumbledore was a standalone story. But it’s not: it’s the THIRD MOVIE of what is apparently going to a five-film saga. And because of the poor critical and audience reception of The Crimes of Grindelwald, this movie echoes some of the problems inherent in J.J. Abrams’ The Rise of Skywalker in that it tried to undo (or, at the very least, mitigate) the narrative issues of its predecessor while also telling its own cohesive story. But whereas the ninth movie of the “Skywalker Saga” is at least entertaining to watch and is largely cohesive within its broader trilogy, this movie simply ignores things established previously. For example, the first Fantastic Beasts movie takes place in 1926 and its sequel comes about a year later. Thus, the fact that this film takes place in 1932 means that it’s been approximately six years from the first movie to the third one. Yet when the American charms professor Eulalie “Lally” Hicks (Jessica Williams) finds Kowalski to recruit him she repeats his involvement with Newt and company as happening “a little over a year ago.” Right then and there, it was clear to me that Rowling lacks any genuine respect for her own source material. If she can’t even recall how much time has passed between movies, how am I supposed to take any story that she wants to tell seriously?!? Aside from just the issues of chronology in this franchise, I am now seriously questioning who the main character is supposed to be. Whereas in the first film our protagonist Newt Scamander in a “fish-out-of-water” scenario as a British wizard in New York City, both of the sequels injecting Dumbledore into the mix complicate my understanding of who our protagonist actually is. And that’s even more true in The Secrets of Dumbledore since Jude Law has a far more significant presence in the story than in the second movie. So, now has Newt been relegated to a deuteragonist with Dumbledore taking the helm or does Rowling just lack a fully-fleshed out plan for her Fantastic Beasts story? Probably the latter, but who can say for certain?!? 😊 All in all, The Secrets of Dumbledore is better than The Crimes of Grindelwald. But not much better, since its lows aren’t as bad but it lacks really any highs worth shouting to the rooftops about. Overall, what are my thoughts on the Fantastic Beasts movies? Hopefully not surprising this far in, but I continue to be underwhelmed and disappointed by these films. While their quality varies from one to the next, the series as a whole no longer justifies its own existence. Now, I just wish Warner Brothers will keep themselves from greenlighting a sequel and focus their resources on bringing back the main characters from the Harry Potter series to adapt the “Cursed Child” play into a one-off celebrating of the Wizarding World. With all that being said, here is my ranking of the first three Fantastic Beasts movies:
What are your thoughts on the Fantastic Beasts series? Would you prefer they just stop and make a “Cursed Child” movie like I do? What opinions of mine do you find absolutely ridiculous? Let me know in the comments below. Until next time, this has been… Yours Truly, Amateur Analyst
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Austin McManusI have no academic or professional background in film production or criticism; I simply love watching and talking about movies. Archives
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