'Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them 2: The Crimes of Grindelwald'

Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald is a fantasy adventure movie the first sequel to the 2016 franchise starter. Set in the Potterverse in the first half of the 20th century the dark wizard Grindelwald(Johnny Depp) escapes his captivity in New York and sets out to woo powerful unstable magical force Credence(Ezra Miller). Dumbledore(Jude Law) sets our friendly neighborhood creature charmer Newt(Eddie Redmayne) on the task to find Credence and thwart Grindelwald.

None of the performances are particularly notable because no individual character is given any time to do much of anything other than puppet-like jerk through the convoluted, incredulity inducing, ultimately banal plotting. The one clear and present eye sore is Johnny Depp who puts in a thin, lazy, fleshy turn and begs the question why his casting was maintained from the first movie to this. His domestic abuse, bad behavior, willful substance abuse problems are all well documented which is reason enough to recast but even if you are a die hard separatist of the art and the artist it is unarguable that Depp hasn't given a more than adequate(at best) performance in 15 years. Whatever charisma or ability he once had is faded to nothing. Johnny Depp's casting is the most egregious error in a movie filled with them.

The narrative suffers from the worst habits of modern franchise filmmaking. It is all filler, the characters are moved like chess pieces around a board but nothing actually happens. With a two hour plus running time the only thing of significance that happens comes at the very end and ultimately its a MacGuffin we weren't even aware of. The successful aspect of the first installment was the chemistry of the core four leads especially the charm and humor of Dan Fogler as Jacob and Allison Sudol as Queenie. Grindelwald and the machinations of his rise are not terribly interesting especially since the performance and the story are but a pale approximation of something we've already seen ie Voldemort. The filmmakers seem not to be aware of why Harry Potter was a success, why the first film was a moderate success, or how to tell(or have forgotten) a competent engaging story. It's the people. Interesting people and compelling relationships make for good stories. Full stop.

The characters we are familiar with are given little screen time, are underdeveloped, and are separated in a ham-fisted way that goes against what we know about them as characters. A myriad of new characters are introduced but there are so many, needlessly, they are given no real context, backstory or development. The result is a bunch of two dimensional cut outs wobbling through the motions of an unbelievable piece of glittering CGI artistry.

Reminiscent of the failed 21st century Narnia series this franchise will derail if some serious adjustments aren't made.

Don't See It.