Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes Of Grindelwald Review

Harry Potter fans it's been a fairly long time since we last spoke in fact it's been at least six or seven months since i've last talked about a Harry Potter or Fantastic Beasts. Well as well can see by the title of this post that's going to change , the film that i'm reviewing today is one that i've not only seen the once when it first came out but but it's also the only Harry Potter / Fantastic Beasts that I don't own on either DVD or Blu-ray and so join me as I review "Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes Of Grindelwald" enjoy the review wizards and muggles alike.

The plot of the film is the dark wizard Grindelwald has escaped and so it's up to Newt and friends plus a young Albus Dumbledore to stop Grindelwald before he becomes one step closer to forming a new wizarding world order. Plot wise this film really isn't that good since the plot of the film isn't strong enough to support a feature film hell if anything tis plot should have been used for a book or short film since like i said the plot isn't strong enough to support a feature length film but it would suit a short film and the plot of this film is so complicated that it would suit being the plot of a book or novel better then being the plot of a feature length film.   

Starring in the film is Eddie Redmayne as Newt Scamander and Katherine Waterston as Porpentina "Tina" Goldstein. Also starring in the film is Dan Fogler as Jacob Kowalski , Alison Sudol as Queenie Goldstein , Ezra Miller as Credence Barebone , Zoë Kravitz as Leta Lestrange , Callum Turner as Theseus Scamander , Claudia Kim as Nagini , Jude Law as Albus Dumbledore and Johnny Depp as Gellert Grindelwald.

As for what I thought about the acting in the film the acting in this film was honestly really freaking good in my opinion. All of the actors really do make the best out of a bad script and are able to turn in some solid performances that being said tho the script for this film is honestly pretty freaking bad in my opinion since it gives the characters little to no personality and as such the actors can only do so much to make the script work but anyone who has seen of the actors previous work will know that the acting in this film clearly isn't the actors best work and like I said alot of that does come down to the fairly bad script in my opinion.

Doing the CGI for this film are Framestore , Double Negative , Rodeo FX , Image Engine Design and Method Studios. The CGI just like the other films in the Harry Potter and Fantastic Beasts films is truly fantastic with all of the CGI creatures looking like they were actually there in set and I like the fact that the CGI creatures in this film cast shadows which I know is a small thing but it's that attention to detail that I love since it shows that the companies doing the CGI for the film care a great deal about turning in great looking CGI since everyone casts a shadow and so it makes sense that these CGI creatures would also cast a shadow.

One of the most puzzling additions to the story is the fact that they chose to give us an origin story for Voldemort's snake Nagini. I say this is puzzling because I don't recall people wanting to find how Voldemort's snake came to be it's something that didn't really need explaining and what makes matters worse is that Nagini is a pointless character in this film since she adds nothing to story and is there purely for fan service and eye candy and nothing more.

Now this is something that only die hard Harry Potter fans will hate but non die hard fans of the Harry Potter franchise won't mind this. For some reason this film chose to have a young Minerva McGonagall which doesn't make sense since in terms of the continuity the character would either be a very young girl / teenager or simply wouldn't be born and yet here she is as a young professor at Hogwarts School , I honestly feel that more attention should have been payed to the continuity of the franchise since this is something that die hard Harry Potter fans are going to notice and they certainly did notice because it was one of the many complaints that the film got when it first released all the way back in 2018 but sadly they didn't pay attention to the franchise continuity.

As to be expected when you have a young Albus Dumbledore as one of your characters we do get to see Hogwarts again and I have to say I have very mixed feelings about seeing Hogwarts again. Since altho the reveal of the school is actually pretty cool and again given that were dealing with a young Albus Dumbledore having alot of his scenes set at Hogwarts makes sense however at the same time all those scenes did was remind me that I could be watching a better series of films and that took me out of this film.

This film has a running time of two hours and thirteen minuets and fifty seconds which I feel is a tad bit on the long side for this film. This again boils down to the plot being really complicated and at times kind of hard to follow as such this film does at times feel boring and if i'm being honest if this film had streamlined it's story to make it more simple and easy to follow then the story could have been told in well under two hours and nothing important to the plot would have been or need to have been cut but as it is what we are left with is a film that feels boring nd can be confusing as all hell.

Now then boys and girls since this is an action fantasy film that does mean that I have to talk about the action that's in the film itself. Which is honestly the most entertaining part of the film since that's when everyone gets super creative with the visuals and what we see on screen and if the whole film was done more like these action scenes then this film would be perfect or damn near perfect in my honest opinion but I will admit that there are times where the action feels a bit boring but those are few and far between in my very humble opinion.

Overall yeah this is honestly a pretty bad film if i'm being honest which is a shame because it had the potential to be really good. However the film makers were more focused on setting up the sequels then they were in making sure that this film was best film that it possibly could be and while there are some good things in this film which just like the bad things that are in the film i've discussed both the good and the bad things that are in this film in this very review as such this film gets a 5.5 out of 10 from me and as for where I got the images that I used in this review well I got them from the official Harry Potter fandom wiki page and Google Images with the website that I would honestly recommend using from images from anything to do with the Harry Potter franchise being the official Harry Potter fandom wiki page just because alot of if not all of the images on the official Harry Potter fandom wiki page are very high definition as well as high quality.