Not so ‘Fantastic Beasts’
Harry Potter prequel lacks movie magic, visually drab
The Wizarding World of Harry Potter makes its return to the big screen this month with “Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald.”
The film follows Newt Scamander (Eddie Redmayne), a young wizard who studies magical creatures. After the escape of notorious dark wizard Gellert Grindelwald (Johnny Depp), Scamander is contacted by a young Albus Dumbledore (Jude Law), who sends him to Paris to stop Grindelwald from amazing enough wizards to overthrow the non-magical world. Grindelwald is in search of Credence Barebone, hoping to use his powerful magical abilities to destroy Dumbledore.
This film is the second prequel to the Harry Potter series. It was preceded by “Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them” which was released two years prior. This film kicks off a year after that one.
This film is not good. It suffers from a multitude of problems. A lot of it has to do with the plot of this film, but some of these problems have been ones that have plagued the Harry Potter films for a long time. I’ll first take a look at the problems that are unique to this film.
The plot of this film is way too complicated, while also having very low stakes. The plot basically centers around everyone looking for Credence and features a lot of really bland scenes of people just walking around shadowy places. It doesn’t feel like the plot is building to anything, which makes it very uninteresting. It introduces way too many side characters, most of whom get pushed to the back by the end of the film and really don’t do much throughout the story. Every single character in this film has a sidekick, who really doesn’t do anything and just follows their counterpart around for the whole movie.
Another problem in this film is that it relies heavily on fan service. By that I mean that it relies on too much nostalgia for the Harry Potter series. Some examples are the use of Nagini, who was just Voldemort’s snake in the other films but is shoehorned into this film because fans remember her, Nicolas Flamel who created the Philosopher’s Stone from the first Harry Potter film and Dumbledore who, despite being at the forefront of the marketing for this films, appears for only a handful of scenes. So if you’re going in hoping to see a lot of young Dumbledore, you’re going to be disappointed.
This film is plagued by a problem that has been carried over from past films. This film looks boring. What I mean is that, visually, this film is very uninteresting. It uses a lot of muted colors and greys, which adds no style of flare to the way this film looks. The sets are mostly just dark empty spaces and hallways. This is a movie about wizards and magic beasts, the visuals should reflect the awe and wonder of what the audience is experiencing. Instead the entire film feels like the whole world is having a funeral.
It should be bright and visually interesting, similar to the first four Harry Potter films. Those four films had an air of wonder and mysticism that used lots of colour and have interesting set design. Every movie going forward is looks bare and drab. Perhaps this is due to David Yates taking over directing of these films from that point forward and that this is his style. If that is the case, his style is not suited for a world of wizards and witches as it has been a major detriment to each film. There is no feeling to magic in this sterile wizarding world.
This film is a definite misstep in the Harry Potter series. It had the potential to be an interesting study of the relationship between Grindelwald and Dumbledore, but instead it relies too much on bland characters, fan service and setting up the three planned sequels. Hopefully this series will be able to find its magic again in one of them.