FANTASTIC BEASTS: THE CRIMES OF GRINDELWALD (O-RVZ MOVIE REVIEW)

Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald is the follow-up film of the first Fantastic Beast and Where to Find Them released last 2016. It is the second installment of the Fantastic Beasts franchise and also marks as the tenth overall film in the Wizarding World franchise (including the Harry Potter films). The sequel has the original casts from the first film returning and also features new faces to play some of the iconic characters from the Harry Potter franchise such as Albus Dumbledore played by Jude Law, Nagini played by Claudia Kim and the immortal Nicolas Flamel played by Brontis Jodorowsky.

As a fan to both of the Harry Potter films and the original Fantastic Beast, I always like how they portray the wizarding world. As more films keep coming into this Wizarding World franchise, the quality of their cinematography and visual effects keeps getting better and better. Unlike the Harry Potter films which its story limits into the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, the Fantastic Beast franchise story is leaning into the more global scale of it featuring prominent countries practicing witchcraft and wizardry. It is indeed an interesting approach having this kind of direction as it also provides numerous possibilities in its story standpoint not only to the Fantastic Beast franchise but also providing some background of certain characters or plot points that we have seen from the previous Harry Potter films. The downside of it is that if you use it as your main foundation to your main plot that also connects to those previous films, it often results in a very confusing storyline. This sequel was just it. It tries to borrow some elements from the previous ones and the end result was just really messy and dull. It is a very slow paced film that really makes you question where this film is going to head and once this film hits that certain climax point you forget that it's the end part already. This sequel really suffers from all the build-up going on trying to set-up the next film and also some plot twists on some certain characters which I find not even surprising or not necessary to have. There were lesser "Fantastic Beasts" featured for this sequel and I just didn't like Johnny Depp's performance as the main villain. It's a shame because I liked the performance of Colin Farrell from the original more so than Johnny Depp. Colin Farrel's performance was just so menacing and intimidating and it would have been a different film at least if they have kept him playing as Gellert Grindelwald.

OVERALL

FANTASTIC BEASTS: THE CRIMES OF GRINDELWALD suffers greatly from being so slow paced and having a very confusing story. I watched this film with so many questions that keeps popping on my head and eventually got lost interest at the end of the film. There were few Fantastic Beasts featured which surprisingly is part of the main title of the film. Some of the plot twists weren't even that surprising or interesting, unlike the first one when we get to know who is truly the carrier of the Obscurus. For me, this is by far the weakest entry of the entire Wizarding World franchise. Though this film may suffer from all of its build-ups, I expect that the next sequel would be more flawless now since everything has been set. And also, if you're going to retain the Fantastic Beast in the title on the next sequel, at least provide more beasts into it. Or just remove it if the beasts are no longer of importance for the film.