Spellbinding stuff
FANTASTIC BEASTS: THE CRIMES OF GRINDELWALD SUSPIRIA
J★★★★★ K Rowling unleashes her formidable imagination in this rich fantasy adventure and sees her Harry Potter spin-off come on leaps and bounds.
Busy with action, humour and romance, we experience her majestically detailed and gorgeously designed world through the eyes of her hero, Eddie Redmayne’s naive wizard, Newt Scamander.
At the centre of Rowling’s story is Ezra Miller’s Credence Barebone, a disturbed young man who is down and out in Paris, and who competing groups are trying to locate for very different reasons.
Among them are Johnny Depp’s softly spoken villain Grindelwald, who uses tea and sympathy to recruit the weak-minded and vulnerable, while exploiting the prejudice of powerful fullblood wizards to further his own supremacist ambitions and enslave non-magic humans.
Meanwhile, Jude Law’s youngish wizard Dumbledore is at odds with the forces of law and order at the
Ministry of Magic, where oppressive practices are driving wizards headlong towards the forces of darkness.
Unlike Harry Potter, Newt’s name isn’t part of his franchise’s title, and Rowling’s script shuffles a lot of characters as she expands her mythology in all directions and takes us on new flights of fancy via the US, England and France. Along the way we see a jailbreak, a circus, a trip to Hogwarts school of Magic, and everywhere there are cute critters and unpredictable predators lurking. Rowling recognises her audience has matured and pitches her story at teens and young adults, and though it’s riven with bullying, exploitation and murder, there’s also compassion, kindness and a complexity of character. Subterfuge and betrayal culminate in a magic-based battle, and the cliff-hanging finale sees an epic secret revealed.
It’s a fantastic experience to visit a world as vividly realised as this, one I entered with uncommitted hope, and left thrilled with excitement for the next chapter.
Cert 12A Running time 134 minutes
Cert 18 Running time 153 minutes
This leaden-footed ballet-based supernatural horror is not only a drab remake of the lavishly coloured classic original of 1977, but it’s also an unforgivably indulgent one hour longer.
Fifty Shades star Dakota Johnson is impressively physical as Susie, who flees her restrictive Christian community in Ohio to join an austere dance academy in 1977’s Berlin, schooled by Brit actress Tilda Swinton.
Meanwhile, an ageing psychiatrist is searching for Chloe Grace Moretz’s disturbed missing dancer, who believed the ensemble was a witches’ coven.
Earlier this year, director Luca Guadagnino won a best adapted screenplay Oscar for Call Me By Your Name, but he won’t win any awards for this.
Self-importantly divided into seven chapters, the story links witchcraft and religion to corrupt and destructive political ideologies, but fails to develop or clarify its ideas.
A trio of striking dance sequences aside, Suspiria is a muddled and murky mess which will curdle your attention far more than it will your blood.