Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald Review: All Lore

Is Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald worth watching?

Mostly no. Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald is a cluttered, joyless sequel that swaps the first film’s creature comedy for an avalanche of backstory, secrets and franchise set-up. There are handsome images, a welcome turn from Jude Law as a younger Albus Dumbledore, and the occasional flicker of the old magic. But the story is so congested with characters, bloodlines and revelations that it rarely finds room for wonder, and the beasts of the title barely get a look in.

What is Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald about?

The dark wizard Gellert Grindelwald (Johnny Depp) has escaped custody and is gathering followers to his cause: a world in which wizards rule over non-magical people. Albus Dumbledore (Jude Law), the one wizard who might stop him and once his closest friend, cannot act directly, so he turns to his former student Newt Scamander (Eddie Redmayne) for help. Newt’s mission takes him to Paris, where his friends from New York, Tina (Katherine Waterston), Queenie (Alison Sudol) and Jacob (Dan Fogler), become entangled in a gathering conflict, along with the troubled Credence (Ezra Miller), who is searching for the truth about his own identity.

Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald is directed by David Yates from a screenplay by J.K. Rowling. It is a British production in English and runs 134 minutes, and it is the second of three Fantastic Beasts films.

A sequel buried under lore

The film’s central problem is congestion. Almost every character arrives with a secret, a family history or a hidden connection, and the script is more interested in announcing these revelations than in dramatising them. New characters, including Zoë Kravitz’s Leta Lestrange and Callum Turner as Newt’s brother, are introduced mainly to carry exposition, and the plot often stops dead for lengthy explanations of who is related to whom.

For devoted fans, some of this is intriguing, and the film takes the Wizarding World into darker, more political territory. For everyone else, it feels like homework. The lighter pleasures that made the first film enjoyable, Newt’s creatures, his awkward charm and the friendship at the story’s heart, are pushed to the margins.

Glimpses of what might have been

The film is not without its pleasures. Jude Law is well cast as a younger, wittier Dumbledore, and a brief return to Hogwarts provides a jolt of nostalgia that the rest of the film sorely lacks. The 1920s Paris production design is handsome, and a few visual set pieces, including a menacing rally at which Grindelwald makes his pitch to the wizarding world, have genuine atmosphere.

Dan Fogler’s Jacob is still likeable, and one or two creature scenes recapture the whimsy of the original. But these moments feel like fragments of a lighter film struggling to break through a much heavier one.

A villain without a thesis

Johnny Depp’s Grindelwald is meant to be the franchise’s great menace, a seductive demagogue whose politics feel uncomfortably modern. The idea is promising, but the film never gives him a clear enough plan or a vivid enough personality to make him frightening, and his screen time is spread thinly across a sprawling plot. Credence’s story, meanwhile, is left in a holding pattern, circling the same questions for much of the running time.

The climax, heavy on effects and light on emotional clarity, raises more questions than it answers, clearly designed to set up the next instalment rather than to resolve this one.

Who should watch Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald?

It is only really for Wizarding World completists and viewers determined to follow the full Fantastic Beasts trilogy. Casual fans of the first film who enjoyed its creatures and comedy are likely to be disappointed. The tone is darker than its predecessor, with some violence and frightening scenes that may upset younger children.

If you want better from the same world:

• Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, the lighter, more charming first film.
• Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore, the concluding chapter, for those who need to see the story through.
• Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1, which handles dark wizarding politics with far more emotional clarity.

The verdict

The Crimes of Grindelwald is a sequel that mistakes complication for depth. A few striking images and Jude Law’s Dumbledore cannot rescue a story so crowded with lore and revelations that it forgets to be magical, and it marks the point where the Wizarding World films lost their way.

Rating: 2/5