Author: Graeme McMillan / Source: The Hollywood Reporter
Two years after the release of Fantastic Beasts And Where To Find Them, the wizarding world of J.K. Rowling has returned with Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindlewald, the second of five — count ‘em — prequels to the original Harry Potter franchise. But does the new movie, once again directed by franchise stalwart David Yates, have the magical touch fans are hoping for?
“Unlike the first installment, which felt like a strained effort to extend Rowling’s brand, this engaging film has a busy, kinetic style of its own,” writes Caryn James in The Hollywood Reporter’s review. “One of the curious, uninviting choices in the Beasts franchise is its greyish-brown palette, and a flattened, backlot, old-fashioned storybook look. Even fake-Paris looks grim. It’s a relief when the film briefly sets down in the lush green landscape around Hogwarts to visit Dumbledore once more. When the special effects take off, though, the images can be spectacular. In the climactic battle between good and evil, Grindelwald unleashes swirls of icy-blue fire, which take over the screen.”
That fire popped up again in Michael Phillips’ review from the Chicago Tribune, which was otherwise underwhelmed by the movie. “It took J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter-adjacent franchise exactly one film for the shrugs to set in, even with all those fine actors up there amid expensive digital blue flames,” he wrote. Others were similarly bored by what they saw.
Take, for example, The Guardian’s Peter Bradshaw, who noted that the new feature “is just as spectacular as the wonderful opening film, with lovingly realized creatures, witty inventions and sprightly vignettes.
But I couldn’t help feeling that the narrative pace was a little hampered, and that we are getting bogged down, just a bit, in a lot of new detail.” He added that “some of the wonder, novelty and sheer narrative rush of the first film has been mislaid in favor of a more diffuse plot focus, spread out among a bigger ensemble cast.”USA Today’s Brian Truitt agreed, writing that “the ambition of Crimes, from the ballooning cast to the gymnastics required to connect the story to the grander mythology, threatens to derail the…
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