Date- Sunday November 11 2018
Time- 11:35am
Location- Cinemark at Stroud Mall
Party- 2 (my mom and I)
Director: David Yates
Writer (book AND screenplay): J.K. Rowling
Composer: James Newton Howard
Returning Cast:
Newt Scamander- Eddie Redmayne
Jacob Kowalski- Dan Fogler
Tina- Katherine Waterston
Queenie- Alison Sudol
Credence- Ezra Miller
young Grindewald- Jamie Campbell Bower
Newcomers:
Grindlewald- Johnny Depp
Theseus Scamander, Newt's older brother- Callum Turner
Nicholas Flamel- Brontis Jodorowsky
Nagini- Claudia Kim
Albus Dumbledore- Jude Law
Leta Lestrange- Zoë Kravitz
Duration: 134 minutes (+8 trailers)
Write-up:
Opening Remarks
There was a bit of hype leading up to this movie... at least among Harry Potter fans. First off because it's another of the series. And it also includes a younger Dumbledore and shows some scenes at Hogwarts. It's somewhat of a homecoming, even though it's only for a few short scenes, including some flashbacks.
The theater was kinda empty at first, but it quickly filled up in that half hour we were sitting there. And it got pretty quiet once the movie started... but we also had to get through tons of commercials and trailers first.
Trailers:
I'd been saying the last few posts that 7 seems to be a common number because it's happened several movies in a row... well, we finally broke the pattern and got one extra trailer. Are any of them worth seeing? ...not really sure. I was expecting a lot of repeats from previous theater trips, but only one repeated.
And it was the "Kid who would be King"- where a bullied 12 year old in private school pulls the sword from the stone and it brings all kinds of monsters (and Morgana) from Camelot into modern day England and they have to fight them.
As for the other 7:
"The Secret Life of Pets 2"- a teaser trailer, really... Leonard the poodle is left at home again and as soon as his master leaves, a dance party ensues with tons of other dogs. And there's this little Chihuahua tries to put on Copacabana and it falls on deaf ears.
(Have yet to see the first one, but I'd like to at some point)
"Mortal Engines"- funny how quickly this trailer started circulating... we saw it and when we got home, it came on multiple times. It's directed by Peter Jackson (of the LOTR/Hobbit franchises) and it looks like his work... really huge visual effects. What I gather is that it's a post apocalyptic story about cities becoming moving machines and London is the bad guy. And the female protagonist has scarring on her face and her mom was involved in this conflict in the past. Nothing about this really grabs my attention- it could be a huge success or huge flop, depending on how many people see it and how well it's written.
"Spider-man: Into the Spiderverse"- this is animated and it's about a bunch of Spider-men in different alternate universes trying to defeat some bad guy. It looks like it'd be fun for kids, but as a superhero movie, there doesn't seem to be a lot to it. Although not every movie has to be as jam packed as the last Avengers film.
"Bumblebee"- this is another installment of the Transformers franchise. And this time, it's a girl (Hailee Steinfeld) who bonds with the machine. But instead of a Camero, like Shia LeBoeuf found all the way back in the first Michael Bay film (15 years ago, I think... wow, a lot's changed), Bumblebee is an old yellow VW beetle. And Michael Bay isn't directing, so it may have a chance to be halfway decent with its story and not being completely overtaken by effects and explosions.
"Five Feet Apart"- kind of an interesting teen movie... it's about a couple of kids who are in the hospital all the time, sick with cystic fibrosis and they fall in love. The guy is Cole Sprouse, who was Cody from "The Suite Life of Zack & Cody"... dang, that feels forever again and he looks so different now, it's crazy. But he's kind got a defeatist attitude about the whole thing and they start taking their meds together and falling in love, but they can't really interact physically cuz they could catch each other's germs and die. It has potential to be good... I just don't know how good.
"Detective Pikachu"- yeah... so many feelings about this one. This is one of those movies that could either be good or be a complete disaster. There's a video game that's been out for a while, my sister has watched playthroughs on YouTube, where Pikachu actually speaks words with kind of a deep voice and he's a detective, obviously. They actually brought Pikachu and the other Pokémon into the real world and they're animated so they kind of look like animated stuffed animals. I cannot begin to say how much I love this franchise, but depending on how this is done (I doubt I'd get to a theater to see it even if I wanted to), I could love it or really hate it. I'm already kinda weirded out about Pikachu talking like a normal person. The trick is that only this one teenager can understand him and they work together to solve a crime. Oh, and Ryan Reynolds is Pikachu, so there could be that whole self-deprecating Deadpool sense of humor (PG-rated, of course, this is a kid's franchise) involved that makes fun of the franchise. It's an interesting match-up, but I won't know until I see it if it's gonna work. At least for me... this is a side-mode game I don't see myself getting into. I personally just love the general franchise. Hard to believe next year will mark 20 years since I started playing the game, starting Blue and going onward. I actually took a break for a number of years, but I got back into it in 2015 when 2DS finally went down in price to $80... just in time for the Nintendo Switch, my timing totally rocks #Sarcasm
"Shazam!"- this has nothing to do with the Shaq movie from the 90's... it's another DC supehero where this teenager comes across this power and everytime he says the titular phrase, he turns into Zachary Levi and has super powers. It looks like it could be funny, but at the same time, I'm starting to get a little sick of superheroes. I don't know about everyone else.
The Main Event-
yeah, we're finally here... I'll put some mild spoilers about the previous Fantastic Beasts, but not so much for this movie...
But I'll cut to the chase in saying that this was the first time in all the Harry Potter franchise that I left a theater disappointed... as far as sequels go, The Twin Towers (Lord of the Rings), Empire Strikes Back (Star Wars)... even the first of the Deathly Hallows movies, all of them felt like they accomplished SOMETHING even though their purpose was to set up for the bigger picture that would come in the follow-up installments.
The title of the movie establishes, of course, that Grindewald is the villain and the whole purpose of this side franchise is to defeat him and throw him into Azkaban for eternity. And Grindewald does show up at the end of the prevous film. I just neglected to mention him (or Johnny Depp) in the cast at all because that would be a huge spoiler for that movie. But the HIstory of Magic, as told by J.K. Rowling (and Bathlida Bagshot, the character who wrote that particular Hogwarts textbook) states that Grindewald was defeated in an epic duel with Dumbledore. Heck, in the actual book, The Philospher's/Sorcerer's Stone, it says on Dumbeldore's Chocolate Frog card that he defeated the great Dark Wizard, Grindewald among his many accomplishments, including discovering 12 uses for dragon's blood and he and Nicholas Flamel studied the stone. I just looked it up... this duel takes place in 1945... meaning that we still have less than 20 years until this happens.
Of course, all of the movies will be leading up to this duel... I just hope more happens within this movies, like story progress, to warrant multiple installments.
I think the thing that really got to me about this movie was that there were a million questions we came into it with. First off, we find out that Credence is still alive... he wasn't killed at the end of the previous film, which I thought was a sad moment because there was a chance he could have been saved. Now, this movie starts with him being revealed to be alive and he's going to Paris to find out who his family is. Multiple explanations are given and they connect him to various Wizarding families familiar to Potter fans... but Grindewald finally gives him answers at the end and we have no idea if he's telling the truth or he's giving him this identity as a way to use him against Dumbledore.
That's just one example of several. But there were so many questions and by the end, very few of them were answered and more questions came up to take their place. Like trying to kill a Hydra. It's pretty dang annoying.
We get to reunite with our old favorite characters from the last movie. Newt Scamander is trying to get his travel ban lifted... and Dumbledore more or less helps him navigate around that. In the end, it makes a lot of sense why he does it this way, but Dumbledore becomes even more engimatic than he already is. He has his reasons behind what he does, but he has a real roundabout way of going about that. The Deathly Hallows had this major conflict between Harry and Ron because Ron was skeptical about Dumbledore sending them on this quest to find/destroy Horcruxes to defeat Voldemort when he's given no clues how to go about it. The answers do become clear eventually, but the lack of a road map is frustrating to him. We're all taught to trust Dumbledore absolutely... and maybe it's because it's Jude Law (who I really like, by the way) and it's a younger version of him, but it was hard for me to completely trust a younger Dumbledore. It's an uneasy feeling...
It's kinda cool to see him teach at Hogwarts. He's actually the Defense against the Dark Arts teacher and he's teaching the kids how to defeat Boggarts- poltergeists that take the shape of what a person fears and they need to use the Riddikulus charm to turn it into something funny to finish it off. Interestingly, he is relieved from this position by the Ministry of Magic- they're trying to find out what Grindewald is up to, but he's not being cooperative. This brings back the running joke that no DADA teacher has lasted at Hogwarts for more than a year. Although we see flashbacks when Newt and his ex-girlfriend, Leta Lestrange were going to school and they were fighting Boggarts then too. So Dumbledore was in this position for a couple years. I do remember when Tom Riddle was in his 6th year at Hogwarts (based on the flashback in Chamber of Secrets) that Dumbledore was a Transfiguration professor. The whole running joke actually started when Dumbledore refused to hire Tom Riddle as the DADA professor... and the position became cursed.
Anyway, I got away from the old characters. Newt is back and we find out the previous movie, he went to America because Dumbledore asked him too. We find out that the Muggle he and the other American wizards befriended... he didn't lose his memory like all of the other Muggles. And he and Queenie have been seeing each other. At the time, it was against the law for people with magic to be romantically involved with Muggles, people without magic. And of course, Newt has his suitcase full of creates and adds a few more to his collection. The Niffler also makes more appearances and it actually has a family now. (The theater was actually selling them for $12 and I was almost tempted to get one... they're so cute!)
And Newt and Tina see each other again, but things are a little tense because she thinks he's engaged to someone else... his brother is actually engaged to Newt's ex girlfriend, Leta. She's alluded to briefly in the previous movie, but we get to know her better here and she's also on a search to find out more about her family. We already knew the Lestranges were pretty screwed up because Bellatrix is a psychopath. She was the reason why Neville's parents, respected Aurors in their time, were driven to insanity via the Cruciatus Curse. She's very sadistic. And her family really has a screwed up history... we did get a healthy amount of history, but some of it was hard to watch. Interesting thing is that she's nowhere near as evil as her descendant was. I read up briefly on Newt's history cuz I thought he was related to some other wizard (the only connection I found, and already knew, was that his grandson married Luna Lovegood). He was expelled from Hogwarts because of something Leta did that endangered other students and he took the blame for it. There were flashbacks with her and Newt and they were fun to watch. The actors they cast looked a lot like them and had the mannerisms down perfectly.
The one thing amiss about this movie was that it is called the "Crimes of Grindewald"... he doesn't really have a lot of screen time and he's really not committing any crimes... not yet anyway. Sure, the movie starts with him being transferred from the American ministry to London's ministry and by extension, Azkaban and he escapes custody (the one thing we learn about prison transfers in movies and TV... they never end well) and a bunch of wizards are killed in the process... and he does have some people killed in Paris in order to lie low in their residence... but with that title, you'd expect something more.
Instead what he does is try swaying Credence to join him and he's reaching out to other Wizards and Witches to join him and commit to "The Greater Good"- that phrase has come up once or twice in the Harry Potter books and goes back to him. His goal is to get the Wizarding world out into the open, to stop all the secrery and hiding from the human world. He also shows visions to his brethen of what he sees is the future- tanks, Holocausts and atomic bombs. He more or less predicts the humans will bring the end of the world with World War II. Funny enough, 1945, which is around the time the war is ending... that's when he's supposed to face off against Dumbledore.
Another character we meet is Nagini. Harry Potter fans know her as the snake that follows Voldemort and ultimately becomes a Horcrux. Here, she's an Animagus that's part of a freakshow cirus. The ringleader says to the crowds that she changes to a snake by night and there will come a time when she'll transform and never be able to change back. Whether that's true or just for sure, it's hard to be sure. I just know that she will eventually become a snake permanently to serve Voldemort. (Speaking of Voldemort, I checked on him and he was born in 1926, so he was a baby when this movie was taking place. And when the duel happens, he's 19... so there is a possibility then that Tom Riddle will appear in one of these movies at some point. There's nothing on his Wiki page that says he was inspired by Grindewald... but JK Rowling could still make a connection somewhere, especially if we see more of Nagini in later moies)
Those who pay attention will see some other cameos of characters that relate back to the other franchise. I noted Jamie Campbell Bower, despite the fact he has no lines, he is shown in pictures alongside Dumbledore and he played him in the Deathly Hallows flashback... I just liked how they kept that continuity... and that they changed his eyes to make him look similiar to Johnny Depp.
There's also a funny cameo from Nicholas Flamel... when Harry Potter was in Hogwarts, Flamel had just celebrated his 665th birthday. This is 70 years earlier, meaning he was just short of 600. He looks pretty ancient as it is :P which is crazy to think he's still alive, but he is staying alive thanks to the Elixir of Life from the Sorceror's Stone. He comments how he hadn't seen any action in decades, but we do see him later in the movie. We find him because he's in charge of the safe house Dumbledore told to Newt. So even then, those two were good friends.
And to fulfill another curiosity of mine, I looked up Dumbledore because I thought Jude Law looked too young to play him when he looked so much older in the Harry Potter movies. I thought maybe he'd be as old as Nicholas Flamel because of how close they are... not even close... the wiki page says Dumbledore was born in 1881. Meaning he was 100 when Harry's parents were murdered and he was 116 when he was killed. So relating it to the Fantastic Beasts timeline, Dumbledore was 45-46.
Ok, that makes a bit more sense.
Going back to the movie as a whole, though, it does start up really slow. A lot of exposition where we catch up with old characters and learn about some new ones. But I don't really know what the point of this movie was. Was it trying to stop Grindewald, and failing? Was it trying to kill or arrest Credence, and failing? From what I can tell, it was about drawing lines about what side everyone was on, the "Greater Good" as Grindewald puts it or was it to remain at peace with the muggle world.
There's some great action with other beasts that Newt befriends, although so much is happening, it's hard to keep track of everything. We start to get some answers about things as we go, but more questions pop up to take their place.
All this movie sees to be is a set-up for future sequels. And I really hope more happens in the next movie to make up for the lack of clarity with this one.
Grade: B- (I get the feeling a lot of other people, particularly non-Potter fans, wouldn't be nearly this considerate)
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