And that's okay. Some days we go to the movie theatre looking for an escape to a magical world, our hearts aren't always up for the emotional challenge of something like 'Three Billboards Outside...'
So the challenge is always to find out on what terms to judge these films, and how to sort through our own expectations to get to what the film was.
Admittedly I have never read the Harry Potter books, though I have enjoyed the films and watched them repeatedly. In this regard I find them very similar to Star Wars for myself.
Characters:
I don't like Newt Scamander. I didn't like him very much in the first film. And while I can understand, and even applaud Mrs. Rowling's penchant for unlikely heroes, there was something just too jarring about the way he spoke and the incessant lack of eye contact in the first film for me to like him. They have toned down those two traits in this newer manifestation and his character is better for it. I should like Newt, I like very much the way he is handled. In literature I enjoy when elements of a character are revealed from a third party, I find it interesting and perhaps more sincere when outside characters make comments on a character. In this regard I should like Newt. But there is something to him that is so flat, he is not fleshed out. What do I know of him? Only that he is socially awkward.
Oh, and he likes Tina. Oh, and he likes his brother's fiancee. Who also might like him.
Hey now, this is interesting. I like where this is going! It's complex, dark, morally ambiguous. But all we get in the film is sideways glances at the issue. Fantasy works best when it is not fantastic, when it resonates with experiences with our real world. Conflicted, multiple affections is a very real thing. But rather than even giving it 5 mins of contemplation, its alluded to and then left dangling. Unaddressed and unexplored.
Again, so I have Newt and again I don't like him. Or maybe, I dislike him because other than his social awkwardness I don't know anything about him. He's just going around at Dumbledore's request.
If there's a highlight in the film it is Jude Law as Dumbledore. You can see in him the spectre of the Dumbledore we will later know and love, and yet with every smile and spoken word we see a man that makes us feel confidently that, as Kingsley once said, 'Dumbledore has style'. Here is a wizard in his prime- famous, knowing, confident, and charming.
His antithesis Johnny Depp is the only other intriguing character. Though he fails to really impress as well as Law. Here again I blame the script as Law and Depp are actors of similar quality. Despite Grindelwald's inclusion in a lion's share of the scenes we are left with the lingering concern... what the hell is he about? Another wizard who wants to rule the world? Is this the only conflict available in the Harry Potter world? What does he want that he does not already have? It ends up feeling either completely unexplained or trite.
The rest of the characters are a hodge-podge of placeholders. Even dynamic, endearing characters from the first film- I'm looking at you Jacob and Queenie- are recast here as flat images of themselves. That Queenie wants to marry Jacob is believable, that she might leave America to do so is too, but there's not build up to her switching sides. Oh, I guess I'll join this reknowned evil wizard... cause, well despite that he's completely for subjugating the non-wizarding world.... he'll let me marry Jacob? The reasoning is silly - which isn't inherently wrong, humans are unreasonable all the time but without some depiction of the whys then reason is the only assumptive tool we have and so it all falls short.
Oooh Nagini! I like it! An Easter Egg that's a real chracter... Nope. She feels included as a diversity check box, and while I'm all for diversity- if you're going to give her a character how about giving her some lines? What did the script say for her? Stand beside Credence. Look confused. But beautiful. Exotically Beautiful. But not exotically confused. The confusion should be familiar. Imagine yourself watching this movie. That level of confused.
Leta Lestrange seems similarly misused. Her character seems interesting, a good dose of dark and conflicted and she delivers the movies only truly memorable line 'Oh, Newt you've never met a monster you couldn't love'. But other that being gloomy and her dark glances at Newt, or Newt's brother, or both of them she feels completely unused.
In general, the female characters in this film feel like place holders or idle distractions- they barely do more than the CGI beasts themselves. My instinct is to jump to the conclusion that it is time to hand the reigns over to a woman so that we might get some more dynamic female characters but the truth is that all the characters are so flat that gender shortcomings are likely not to blame.
Movies like this live and die not by their dialogue or their plots even but by characters. And in a film where more than we want to know whats going to happen (hell, we know the outcome of the plot for all intents and purposes) what we want to do is love the characters and in this regard the film is an utter failure.
Plot
I imagine these plots are hard to write. You know where you have started and you know where you will end up and these films just end up being the stuff that happens inbetween. So... it should be fun and open and allow us to explore this magical world we have grown so fond of...
But there still needs to be a plot. And this movie is literally two scenes. I mean there are lots of scenes. Lots. But the plot only has two scenes.
Grindelwald escapes. Gindelwald has a meeting where people take sides.
Underneath that plot is a secondary plot that has something to do with that plot- who is Credence?
It is revealed. And once I thought about it I realized why it was important. And the reveal wasn't a wowing one, more that it made me stop and ponder my very limited genealogical understandings of this world. But emotionally it fell flat. Or didn't even do that. I missed the part in either of the films where I was supposed to care about who Credence was. Everyone is talking about it. But I never became invested in it.
I got to the end of the movie and I was completely unable to answer what CRIMES Grindelwald had even committed, and as that is the title I figure that's important. And as I was unable to say assuredly what they were, god forbid venture a guess at why he would have done them, I figure that's important too when stating the film's shortcomings.
All of the original Harry Potter movies, other than the Deathly Hollows pair- always made me laugh, had moments that I found resoundingly endearing -I'm looking at your Luna in your unexplained amazing Lion hat- that kept me emotionally invested even when I knew, even as a non-book-reader, where the plot was going. This movie has none of that and without it the boorishness of the plot real sticks with you.
The Wanting
I think there are a lot interesting parallels between Star Wars and Harry Potter. And perhaps I am more fond of Star Wars because I grew up with it (though from a technical point of view I think I believe the Harry Potter movies are better) but every time I see a Star Wars movie- even the flawed and unnecessary Han Solo stand alone flick- I find myself wanting more. The Star Wars universe always seems to have room in it for more stories, and each time I see a film I want to see another one. Especially as they venture into more adult driven movies, give me more Rogue One styled movies!
This movie left me completely uninterested in what happens next. I'm a character person, it's probably that.
Though it might also be that these movies occur almost entirely in the real world. It lacks the mystery, the charm, the mythology of the original movies. At this point I think I would rather hear some random story about someone from Hufflepuff than find out the conclusion of this series where it is obvious that Dumbledore triumphs and seemingly obvious that Newt and Tina end up together, which I imagine is a riveting, rewarding relationship... Tina shows affection, Newt stares at feet, Newt leaves and has a sincere moment with a six legged water antelope who is misunderstood due to the fact that it viciously eats it's own babies, its called a Saturn Stag (how does this species go on? All the babies erupt from the corpse once the parent dies).
If I heard that they weren't making any more of these movies I think I might, with some regret, be willing to concede that the original movies are enough.
Grade:
C-
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