Re: fantastic beasts and the crimes of Grindelwald?
Okay, I went to watch the film today since a good friend of mine came over to stay for a bit and watching films together has sort of been a tradition of ours ever since we watched the first hp film together at uni a scarily long time ago .
The cinema did have audio description which was awesome.
What was odd is that before the film, I had to read the wikipedia article about the first film, because while I remember liking the magical creatures, nute skemanda being a very appealing character, and the mugle baker, I couldn't remember any actual details of the film's plot.
This is odd, usually when i go to see the second film in a series I'm always thinking "hay what's going to hapen to so and so", or "I wonder where such and such a plot is going" but really the first film was so much popcorn it just didn't register.
It was fun, fluffy entertainment, but just not something that stuck with me.
That largely is how I feel about the second film. Visually and action wise it was awesome in parts, the characters were engaging but it just didn't add to the mythos much at all or really make me feel satisfied.
In general I'd say the film suffers from Mphat syndrome, albeit with a far better standard of writing and characterisation. It poses a hole bunch of questions and does a lot of things "because they're cool" rather than because they made sense.
This is why for much of the film I'm thinking that a lot of characters felt wasted, or that a lot of opportunities were lost, and thinking the next few films have a hell of a lot of ground to cover.
Okay, there is the none spoilery part of what I'm going to say, onto the spoilage, so if you haven't seen the film already, stop reading right here because the next part will be chock full of spoilers!
First, Jacob and queeny. This woman basically mind rapes JAcob into marrying her, something which in rowling universe is always seen as pretty dire, (Corvus Lestrange's father was quite the scumbag for doing the same thing), yet for the entire rest of the film Jacob is trying to make up for a single slip of the tongue he made. I get that queeny is sensative about the hole "crazy thing" but can you say over reaction, especially her joining the wizard nazi party. Indeed speaking of Grindlewald, I'm not exactly sure where he's coming from here. Its not really a blood purity thing like Voldemort, but his "muggles are different speech was a bit obvious here, can anyone say "all animals equal but some are more equal than others?"
I always got the idea in the hp books that Grindlewalt had basically his own nazi order complete with control over hoel regions of europe, and yet we saw none of this, indeed his movement is remarkably like voldemort's accept for his huge castle of course.
Oh and where was the hallows symbol? Victor crum made out that it was Grindlewalt's sign and wearing it around europe now would be like someone running around with a swastika, and yet we didn't see it at all.
While we're on the subject, I thought that future prediction was an incredibly risky business, and yet here we see the most accurate crystal ball ever, and predicting the second world war, which again, why in the name of merry hell should it all be the second world war? Really there was more going on at the time .
Actually as a general point I'm rather sick of the second world war, it seems to turn up all the time these days.
then, poor Leta Lestrange. We see her having a bad time at Hogwarts, and Nute just being nice to her, yet she's marrying his brother? The brother with whom she has zero on screen time until she's conveniently got out of the way so Nute can have his romance with Tina. Can you say wasted potential for a character?
Indeed, I'm afraid I got the idea that her chief purpose in the plot was to provide information.
While we're on the subject of Newt, is it me or is Newt Skemanda quite the dood here? I mean, he has two out of the four main female both very interested in him, it sort of negates the hole nice but socially awkward zoologist act, though I must admit its a change to see a film with just a plane nice guy as a main character, since yee gods I'm getting sick of edgy anxty heroes.
Less happily what in the hell was that spell that Grindlewald used at the end to create his ring of fire, a ring of fire that conveniently blew away everyone accept the main cast and his minians. What was the casting for that one "insendio redshirtio?" .
The mirror of errised? why exactly was dumbledor seeing a vision of himself making a blood pact with Grindlewalt? This was actually disappointing, there was the implication that there was something more going on between Dumbeldor and Grindlewalt, with the "closer than brothers" comment, and this would be the perfect chance to actually show it. Indeed, I'd have quite liked it if the film showed Albus' fantasy of him and Grindlewalt being a married couple since it would be a really nice way of including a good romance between two men, or at least the desire for one in a plot cogent way, but maybe this was too progressive for hollywood I don't know, plus I don't exactly see Dumbledor randomly chatting about his dead sister to some auras who really disliek him either, (methinks he was talking to the fans).
Oh and Mcgonigal, why?
Oh and Grindlewalt's random flame monster that gets mutliple bazazzed by the good guys, why?
And the spirit cat things? why?
And nagini is now woman who randomly turned into a snake and was in a freak show, and yet we know will end up evil some how, though at least that one I'm hoping to be explained later?
And forks the phoenix back story, ---- why?
And dumbledor's brother, why?
Unfortunately, ~J K Rowling has a habbit of wanting to tie everything together, but there is a point, especially when your dealing with prequals that don't actually have an on going main series plot when it becomes name dropping for the sake of name dropping (doctor who is rather bad for this).
I bet soon it'll turn out that the eagle feather quill Hermione gave to harry was actually from an eagle who was the animagus form of Voldemort's sister who was was secretly Lupin's old girlfriend before she was mistakenly fed poison by Ron Weesley's grandfather or something .
In general it wasn't a bad film I did enjoy it, but a combination of a lot of why? a lot of wasted plots and a lot of stuff that just seemed to exist because it was cool made it feel far fragmented and less satisfying.
Undoubtedly plots are going to be solved, such as Nagini, I'm interested to see where Rabastan Lestrange comes from for example (assuming we actually learn that, since if Leta was the last lestrange that's a pretty huge plot hole), however in general I wish it would do more to cover new ground and present us the adventures of new characters rather than just add yet more continuity just for the sake of continuity, since there is a point when (to quote spaceballs), revealing that someone is your father's brothers cousin's nephew's former room mate really does mean absolutely nothing .
This process started in cursed child, when (as I said in my review of the screanplay, which you can Read here Albus Potter's complaint that he can't live up to his father is quite legitimate since apparently nothing at all interesting is currently happening in the Wizarding world, and we need to revisit Voldemort just to get some plot .
Its a shame, because like Albus and Scorpius, Newt, his creatures and Jacob are great to spend time with, and characters like Creedence and Nagini have some great potential, but if all they're basically doing is hanging on to Harry Potter's coat tales, how can they have time to develop on their own?
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