8/24/2023 0 Comments Fantastical beast 2![]() That said, I’m enamored enough of the whole Potter mythology that I probably would have happily sat through this whole familiar saga had any of it made a lick of sense (or satisfying nonsense). But it usually waits longer than the studio green-light process. I guess there’s an argument to be made that Rowling is reminding us that dangerous political ideology never really dies. It’s curiously repetitive, as if George Lucas had made a prequel series not about the origins of Darth Vader, but of some other freak in a different mask who knew some of the same people Vader did, just when they were younger and played by Jude Law. It’s hard to invest in those stakes, though, when we know that just after Grindelwald’s inevitable defeat, there will come another hissing megalomaniac looking to purify the wizard race and enslave the non-magical. The Fantastic Beasts series is building toward wizard of all wizards Albus Dumbledore’s big showdown with the new film’s titular menace, dimly detailed in the last Harry Potter book. But the film’s allusions to the rise of real-life fascism are facile, partly because we’ve seen them before, not just in the first Fantastic Beasts, but in the whole remembered arc of Voldemort’s ascent to terrible power. I guess “if you’re not with us, you’re against us” is a viable stance to take in Donald Trump’s America-I mean, Grindelwald’s Europe. ![]() or police of the wizarding world, and their use of state-sanctioned violence comes into play in Crimes of Grindelwald’s tortured political schema.Įarly in the film, Scamander says, “I don’t take sides” the film’s project, if it has one, concerns Newt waking up to the fact that rigid neutrality is not an option when civilization is on the line. ![]() For those somehow unaware, Aurors are basically the F.B.I. Though her zesty moxie has been confoundingly dialed down for the sequel, Katherine Waterston, as dogged American Auror Tina Goldstein, at least has one winning scene with Redmayne-a glimmer of a nicer movie that’s otherwise hidden behind the murk. As a rushed film, though, Crimes of Grindelwald is almost an offense, taking fan devotion so for-granted that it serves us raw food. Maybe this should have been a TV series, if Rowling wanted to encompass so much-or she could have written a novel and then waited for a sufficient adaptation. But Crimes of Grindelwald tries to do entirely too much with no foundational text, so even diehards willing to follow Pottermore and various fan wikis to the ends of the Internet may find themselves hungry for further clarity. There are ribbons of old Rowling running throughout the film, mysteries from the past mingling with the present, teased out through callbacks and gradually meted out reveals. If even they can’t figure out how to expand this narrative in any comprehensible or engrossing way, then what possible future could the whole enterprise have? Which is troubling, given that Harry Potter stalwart David Yates (responsible for one of the best films in the original run) directed the thing, and Rowling herself wrote the script. Rowling’s original world-while trying desperately to entwine itself with it-that it can only gesture (or is it a flail?) toward what once, not too long ago, made these stories so special. Just as Game of Thrones began to sputter after it exhausted its rich source material, Grindelwald is far enough beyond the scope of J.K. big-budget show, too.) Scattered, confusing, and haunted by past grandeur, Crimes of Grindelwald perhaps marks the landmark moment when, alas, the magic finally flickers out. (The film is about as cheap- and plain-looking as a just-O.K. Watching Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald, the second in a planned series of Harry Potter prequels, is a bit like watching a “previously on” recap of a season of television, except there are no actual episodes to go back to and watch in full.
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