I also remember being in college and seeing the release of “The Deathly Hallows: Part 2” in theaters. On the drive home I think my friend was complaining at certain changes that were made to the finale, which was understandable. But I was overcome with emotion because it felt like it was truly the end of an era.
Then the Fantastic Beasts movies came out.
Oh boy.
As a friend of mine always says, never believe Hollywood when they say something is the final chapter. And when you have access to a world that is as expansive and popular as the Wizarding World, you find ways to continue, but it’s been a very bumpy and messy ride to say the least. A Broadway show called “The Cursed Child” was released. And while my theater friends claim the show itself is incredible, I read that book version of what the play is and that is an ugly nightmare that felt like an atrociously written fan fiction. J.K. Rowling, our beloved creator of this particular fictional universe, has potentially proven that she caught lightning in a bottle because none of her ensuing works have panned out. And she won’t shut up on Twitter as she’s constantly bullying and harassing the transgender community.
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And on top of all that, there’s even more behind-the-scenes drama as they have fired Johnny Depp as Grindelwald. And I know the Johnny Depp and Amber Heard situation is a giant mess, but if one does their best to objectively look into the facts of the case instead of having a knee-jerk reaction to the media reports, one might come to realize that it’s Depp that’s the victim here with Heard as abuser. Not the other way around. Yet Depp loses his job and Heard still gets her role in Aquaman 2. So there remains an ugly stench about the whole thing. Perhaps its karma that Ezra Miller has now been arrested twice in the last month for assault, with a whole bunch of other additional allegations on top of that? It’s now a double mess watching this movie with Ezra Miller in this movie, Johnny Depp not in this movie, and knowing that Heard and Miller both have major roles in upcoming DC movies.
Yet it’s important to note with all of this behind-the-scenes drama that I’m not in a position to want to boycott any of these movies. Sure, the Depp/Heard, Ezra Miller, and J.K. Rowling situations are rather gross, but there are so many others who worked so hard on these projects to give us all quality entertainment. It’s not fair to them to get punished for things beyond their control. Which is why I still gave this movie a fair shot and tried my hardest to enjoy it. When push comes to shove, it’s the quality of the final product that matters the most.
And in terms of the final product, I can sadly tell you that if you did choose to skip this movie for whatever reason, whether it be Rowling’s tweets, Depp’s firing, or just a lack of interest following the atrocities of the second film, you’re not missing anything.
To the credit of this third movie, I do think there was an honest effort to try to take a turn and make a movie that the fans would enjoy. And I can say that almost solely based on the end credits stating that this movie was written by Steve Kloves and J.K. Rowling, based on a screenplay by J.K. Rowling. That’s some curious wording right there. I would be very interested to know more about how exactly everything went down, but initial reports seem to suggest that Rowling had the screenplay for this third movie written very shortly after the second movie was released. And she was the sole credited writer on both of the first two Fantastic Beasts movies, which is an issue in and of itself as writing a screenplay for a movie is a much different task than writing a novel. Two very different skillsets. But yet the fact that this is the first in the Fantastic Beasts franchise to include Steve Kloves as a writer and uses that wording of “Based on a screenplay by…” suggests some massive rewrites to the screenplay after they saw the reaction to the second movie and then read what Rowling had in mind for the third movie. And to that I give them credit for trying to steer the ship in the proper direction. I just don’t think they were successful enough to have completely saved the movie.
In fact, it now just feels even messier in hindsight, even if this specific movie is probably not as bad as it could’ve been. It just screams of conflicting ideas that didn’t quite work out. And as much as it pains me to say this, I think it’s time to drop Rowling from her own universe and it’s time to just end the Fantastic Beasts franchise and try something different. With fresh eyes and a different perspective. And no, I’m not saying end this franchise by making one final film, I’m saying end the franchise right here with this third movie. And given that there’s new ownership at the top of Warner Bros. with them not being owned by AT&T and merging with Discovery, I could realistically see the rest of this franchise being canceled, especially with the atrocious box office receipts so far. And I’m not going to be upset one bit.
I honestly think in hindsight that the biggest problem that this movie has is that of an identity crisis. It doesn’t know if it wants to be a Fantastic Beasts movie or a Dumbledore vs. Grindelwald prequel. I don’t know what the original idea was vs. the re-writes, but I could see a scenario where Rowling was fully on board with the Dumbledore prequel, but the re-writes made it more about Fantastic Beasts. Maybe I’m completely wrong with that, but one of the many complaints about “Crimes of Grindelwald” was that it nearly abandoned the idea of the Fantastic Beasts, which was one of the more fun and unique elements of the first movie. Regardless of who had what idea, there does seem to be a bit of an overcorrection for this movie while also having it do the Dumbledore story. And the final result is a movie revolving around Grindelwald running to be the head, or Supreme Mugwump, of the International Confederation of Wizards, an election that’s almost completely decided by a fantastical creature called a Qilin that sees into your soul and bows to you if you’re worthy.
There are a number of questions I have about that, but it’s mainly confusing to me that a society of wizards that’s so advanced runs an election that’s so old-fashioned. Sure, the people still decide who they want. But they seem to put all their trust into which candidate this creature bows in front of. And that idea doesn’t make much sense to me. I think the only reason why they included it is that they had to make this a Fantastic Beasts movie. Unnecessary convolution based on fans complaining that there weren’t enough fantastic beasts in the last Fantastic Beasts movie.
And yet I’m not 100 percent sure that this will perfectly satisfy those wanting more fantastic beasts due to the brutal nature of this movie’s introduction. There’s some stuff with Dumbledore and Grindelwald to start the movie off, but then it leads into a very brutal scene where Newt Scamander tries to rescue a mother Quilin and her new baby twins, but has to watch as the mother gets killed and one of the babies gets kidnapped, then killed. Grindelwald uses some dark magic to make the dead baby they kidnapped walk around and do his bidding and thus fool the wizards voting in this election. If you were wanting more fantastic beasts, is this the fantastic beasts plot you were really hoping for? Of course the saving grace in the eyes of the movie is that one of the twins is kept alive and hidden in Newt’s magical suitcase. And they’re trying to eventually get to the point where they can stop Grindelwald from being elected, a thing that Dumbledore can’t do himself due to a blood pact that he made with Grindelwald earlier in life. But it’s still a bit more brutal and dark than it needed to be.
I’m also not really sure if I’m that interested in a fantasy movie where the main plot is revolved around an illegitimate election where one party completely rigs the election to get the supposed support of the people and the main heroes of the movie trying overturn or prevent the votes in order to get the right person in charge. And that’s not a matter of a political opinion one way or the other. It’s just a bit too on the nose. If I’m going to dive into the Wizarding World, I want that to be an escape from reality, not a direct reflection of all the frustratingly maddening political shenanigans that have been happening in the real world. There’s a time and a place for political dramas and documentaries trying to make a point and correct what’s going on, but inside of the Wizarding World is not that place.
But even if we look past all of that, I think there are more issues with the set-up to all of this. It’s a bit of a bumpy ride that I had a hard time perfectly following. Maybe some of that is my problem for not remembering all of the characters from the franchise and what their individual importance is. But my defense is that the movie should do a better job creating memorable characters that I want to follow. Of course I remember Newt Scamander and his muggle friend Jacob. And obviously a Potter fan does not simply forget about Dumbledore and Grindelwald. But there are so many other side characters involved in these adventures that are really hard to keep track of. And the movie seems so excited to have an Avengers-like team up of these characters joining Dumbledore’s first army of sorts in attacking Grindelwald that it forgets that said concept doesn’t work well if one doesn’t have strong connections to these characters.
Maybe I should’ve re-watched the first two movies prior to going into this new one. But I didn’t care to go back and revisit those. I did watch a “Cram It” video on the Fandom Entertainment YouTube Channel where they summarize the first two movies. But all that did is remind me how much of the specifics here have completely disappeared from my memory. And maybe that’s why I didn’t enjoy the whole movie as much as I wanted to or as much as some others have because the connection to these characters is mostly lost on me.
The movie also does a really good job at wandering through a myriad of subplots with many of these characters before we get to this whole election plot that is the main focus. And I couldn’t even spoil this if I wanted to do because the first hour of the movie did a horrible job of keeping my attention. We were going places and doing things. Newt was rescuing his brother from a dungeon thing. I couldn’t remember why his brother was there. I barely remembered that Newt had a brother. We gave Jacob a wand. Why? I don’t know. The only shot of him using the wand in the movie was in the trailer. And it doesn’t work because he’s not a wizard. But they were off doing something with some group of people. And despite the title of the second movie, Grindelwald was forgiven of his crimes for a reason I couldn’t remember. Oh, and did I tell you that the idea of an International Confederation of Wizards is one that was completely lost on me? Am I a bad Potter fan if I have no idea who they even are or why they are that important? Outside the Ministry of Magic in the books, I don’t think the Wizard leadership is explored that much, so now in a third Fantastic Beasts movie and tenth overall movie, I’m supposed to try to care about all of them? And even if I do assume they’re a powerful leadership group of wizards, who are the two other wizards running against Grindelwald in this movie?
The actors all did a good job. Eddie Redmayne has definitely had an interesting career, but I like him as Newt Scamander. Dan Fogler steals most of the scenes he’s in as Jacob Kowalski. Jude Law is again the perfect choice for a young Dumbledore. And even though the firing of Depp leaves a pretty putrid stench, Mads Mikkelsen is the perfect Grindelwald. He makes a solid case that he should’ve been given the role from Day 1. And if we’re inferring a romantic relationship between Dumbledore and Grindelwald, Mads has much better chemistry with Jude Law than Depp did. The two of them actually play it very well as two people who used to care deeply for each other, and still kinda do despite having gone in completely opposite directions. I think if this franchise was specifically committed to being a Dumbledore prequel series from Day 1, that could’ve been an intriguing series, especially with these two actors.
The challenge with that angle is the movie is trying to have its cake and eat it, too. It wants to dive down this rabbit hole, but it also wants to be released in China, which sensors LGTQ content. So they pander to a Chinese audience and dance around the issue for most of the movie and only have a few lines that specifically refer to a thing so they can edit them out for the Chinese release. And that’s not cool. Either commit to the idea or don’t.
But as a whole, this movie is trying to be too many things. It’s trying to please too many people. And even though I appreciate the effort of them trying to do a better job than the second, it just ends up as a big mess. Too much baggage behind this. Not enough intrigue in the movie itself. And of all the directions to take the Wizarding World in the first place, this was probably a long ways down the list among Potter fans and it’s time to cut the losses and do something new. Does the completionist in me want them to officially finish the franchise at the very least? I mean, I wouldn’t hate that. But at the same time, this is a story that we know the ending to. And all that’s left to show is the one thing that we knew about in the first place. And in a way, this movie ends in a fashion that really wraps up everything that it needs to while letting us audiences infer what happens next based on what we already read in the books. I know J.K. Rowling wanted five movies. But we don’t need the final one or two. And based on box office results so far, it doesn’t appear that many people want them, either.
If this is the end of the Fantastic Beasts franchise, it’s kinda sad because it just wound up as a big, giant, ugly mess. A lot of potential completely wasted. But if they decide to continue, then I suppose we’ll cross that bridge when we get there. As far as what else could be done, I feel a film adaptation of “The Cursed Child” is inevitable and I’m dreading that. I’d be fine with ignoring that and doing new stories with the next generation of wizarding children. I’d love to see us do more with the Marauders. And I think it would be great if we told the stories of the original Hogwarts founders. And I think with some of these we could do as HBO Max series instead of movies. All of these sound more interesting to me than a fourth Fantastic Beasts movie, but we’ll see where they decide to go next because this is now a second straight film that just didn’t do it for me.
Grade: 5/10
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