By Jennifer Trend, Staff Writer
“Fantastic Beasts: Crimes of Grindelwald” is the newest addition to the Harry Potter universe and the second installment of the Fantastic Beasts series. Directed by David Yates and written by J.K. Rowling, it follows Newt’s adventures in Paris during troubling times after Grindelwald has escaped.
Critics and viewers are not very pleased with the movie, and while it was number one in box office on opening week, it was the least successful movie in the whole Wizarding World franchise.
The movie did have some major and minor flaws throughout, some of them very hard to ignore. From plot holes to inconsistencies to unclear story lines and character development, the movie failed to fully develop its ideas. Other than that, it was a good movie, and definitely worth the watch and wait.
In my opinion, it was a very good movie, and I think that everyone bashing on the movie didn’t take the time to further think about it. If you watched it in one viewing and didn’t take the time to afterwards go over all the oddities of it, you’d definitely think that the movie did not do well in delivering its storyline- a lot of major points weren’t very clear and were very complex and you’d need some sort of understanding and knowledge of the wizarding world.
For returning fans of the Wizarding World, you’ll notice that the music is relatively the same to all the other movies, especially during the Hogwarts scenes. The music felt like you were in Hogwarts or at the carnival, and the familiarity of it was not unnoticed.
The different settings from both the British and French Ministry of Magic, Hogwarts, Newt’s apartment and different Parisian sights gave viewers the familiarity of what we’ve already known and seen in the future of the Wizarding World while also giving an insight to how Paris’s magical community operates.
As for plot holes, an unclear storyline and character development, there were some mistakes such as McGonagall being a professor when she was technically not even born yet, Leta’s and Newt’s relationship and Newt’s reason for going to Paris. There were some things that didn’t fit or were exactly clear. But, this is only the second movie with three others coming out in the next few years, so hopefully everything will be explained before the end of the series.
It felt as if the movie and a few storylines were put together because they wanted to appeal to the fans or to better the cinematography, but failed to realize how some of the events weren’t exactly rational or plausible.
There were a few surprising plot twists and backstories that were uncovered. It’ll be interesting to see how it all comes into play in the next movie and what other obstacles the characters might face.
