The Crimes of Grindelwald

The 500th film I have seen in theaters…

Oh, It’s on.

A year or so after the events of Fantastic Beasts, Grindelwald escapes from custody and begins to amass his army for a war against the Muggles. Dumbledore sends Newt to Paris to find Prudence, who somehow survived the events of the last film. They have some magical adventures, sort of, and end up at a rally where Grindelwald recruits several to his cause. That’s pretty much it. This movie is filler.

Eddie Redmayne continues to play Newt, but there is no real character development going on with him. He is just the quirky guy with the animals.

Katherine Waterston is a great actress, sadly she is not given much to do here.

Dan Fogler, as in the first film, plays it up for comedy relief, but is the secret heart of this series. His character actually has some important things going on.

Which brings us to Alison Sudol as Queenie. She is taken in by Grindelwald’s pitch and goes dark. Shocking, and the best part of the film.

Ezra Miller is back as Prudence. This story is all about his secret identity. The reveal doesn’t make any sense at the moment. Hopefully it will be cleared up in the next one. Spoiler: He’s a secret Dumbledore.

Zoe Kravitz is Leta Lestrange, of the Bellatrix family. Her family’s history is ultimately nothing more than a red herring. Her character’s death at the end made it ultimately unimportant. This is sad, as she actually had some development here.

Claudia Kim is Nagini, the snake. She’s got a thing for Prudence.

Jude Law is fantastic as Albus Dumbledore. One can’t help but wonder if he should have been the main character of this series.

Johnny Depp is taking a lot of shit for being cast as Grindelwald. I get it, he’s been struggling with alcohol/personal issues. He’s also, once again, in a weird make-up/accent role. Despite this, he was my favorite part of the film. He exuded the proper amount of threat and his pitch at the end was 100% believable. Grindelwald has seen what is coming (World War II, Atomic Bomb) and wants to subjugate the Muggle world before they can blow it up. THAT is a good hook, one I was not expecting.

This movie is a bit of a slow burn, to nothing really. This is simply a filler movie, despite it’s length. I am hoping that now that it is out of the way this series can shine.