“The Crimes of Grindelwald”: a hit and miss amongst Harry Potter fans

By: Jacob Freehart

Staff Writer

“Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald” continued the story of the classic Harry Potter series when it hit theaters Nov. 16, but was it worth the hype?
In “Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald”, Newt Scamander returned as the fun-filled, magical, beast-loving wizard and is trying to recover his life from the events of the previous film.
Shortly after he gets back on his feet, Scamander is quickly sent into action as Albus Dumbledore recruited him to help stop the threat of Gellert Grindelwald. From there, Scamander goes on a quest with old and new characters to put an end to Grindelwald and his fanatics.

As the journey went on, stakes raised and secrets were revealed that will change the wizarding world forever.

As a fan of the Harry Potter books and films, I was very excited going into this movie, but was sadly disappointed. There were many great aspects of the movie, but it
was pale in comparison to the amazing storytelling to the previous movie in the series.
Right from the opening moments, the story was unclear of what was going on and where it would be going. From there it became muddled, with various characters and settings acting more as fillers instead of real scenes with actual stakes at hand.

At times it was hard to follow what was going on or who the main focus was. During some scenes, there were so many characters all in different places while performing different tasks that didn’t always relate to each other.
Along with this, there were some characters who didn’t really make any sense in the film.
In particular, two characters from the first film changed. Due to this, the storyline and conflict seemed out of place and fake. There is a huge debate about the additions of characters to the film and whether they were worth it at all.
J.K. Rowling wrote the screenplay for the film and she wanted to give fans small references to the Harry Potter movies. She did this by adding smaller characters from the first series and then giving them larger roles in this movie. Many fans, including myself, thought there were no payoff for these characters being in the film. They received little screen time and development. The story would have occurred the same way without them being there.
Though there were many issues, there were also many elements that brought familiarity and magnificence to the movie.
Johnny Depp was a very good Grindelwald. He distinguished himself from Voldemort and hinted he will develop to become a complex character in the franchise.
The CGI was also spotless and breathtaking. The magic and beasts looked very real and impressive.
Lastly, the Fantastic Beasts franchise has plenty of potential to come back from this bump in the road and has certainly set up for an interesting third movie.