‘The Crimes of Grindelwald’ is an enjoyable, but flawed, return to the Wizarding World

Posted on November 23, 2018

By MARK VIOLA

The “Harry Potter” series is one of the most financially successful literary endeavors ever, telling the story of a young boy who learns that he is a wizard at the age of 11 and following his journey until his climatic battle with the evil Lord Voldemort seven years later. While it seemed like the Wizarding World had come to an end with the publication of the seventh book, J.K. Rowling and director David Yates, who helmed four of the eight “Harry Potter” films, have partnered to tell a new chapter.

That new journey began in 2016 with “Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them,” the first of what has been announced will be a five-film series. The movie introduced us to Newt Scamander (Eddie Redmayne), a magizoologist, whom fans knew as the author of one of Harry’s textbooks. In the mid-1920s, Newt travels to New York City, unwittingly becoming involved in a crisis that is eventually revealed to be the result of Gellert Grindelwald (Johnny Depp), an evil wizard who wants to rule the non-magical world.

Now, two years later, we have “Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald,” a film that has left me in somewhat of a quandary as to how to properly review it. It is a movie that I enjoyed, despite its many flaws, as it is a wonderful film from a production and special-effects standpoint. Unfortunately, it is a movie that if judged as a standalone film — as most movies should be — I would have to call a failure, because this is not a complete story, but only a piece of one.

But, and this is a very big but, I never expected anything else. In her books, Rowling used a clever narrative device, staging each novel over the course of one school year. While each book had its own story that more or less reached a conclusion at the end, they were all building one larger, richer tale that only works upon reading all seven.

With the “Fantastic Beasts” films, which Rowling is writing herself, it appears she is looking at it as one long novel, broken into five chapters. As such, “The Crimes of Grindelwald” is just chapter two of five, essentially the second half of the first act of said story, rather than an individual story with its own three-act structure.

It remains to be seen if Rowling will be able to pull off this endeavor, with at least six years until we can reasonably expect to see the final chapter. Until then, anyone going to see these films needs to understand that you’re only going to get one-fifth of a movie, and if you’re willing to accept that, you can find a decent amount of enjoyment with “The Crimes of Grindelwald,” as I did.

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