This played out like a Harry Potter movie!
That really isn't saying a lot: I loved the Harry Potter books, but I hated all the movies. This was one of the few times where I'd read the book before encountering a movie, but there was just something that the movies fared poorly at translating to screen. I was especially peeved that they were unable to make any useful headway in bringing "The Prisoner of Azkaban" - the most adult-oriented, and in my opinion,the best of the books - to the big screen.
Bearing that in mind, I had loved the very first Fantastic Beasts feature. Sure, everyone knew that it was in the "Harry Potter Universe", but that didn't stop it from being a wonderful self-contained story. We were given an idiosyncratic protagonist whose misadventures and fascination with the extraordinary were a joy to watch. However, lingering in the undertones of the movie was the antagonist - Grindelwald: though his presence may have been guised for most of the movie, it made for an unlikely reveal at the end of the movie. I grew invested in the main posse of Newt, Jacob, Tina and Queenie, and it was saddening to see Jacob's memories of all the whole incident erased; however, his baking creations drew eerie inspiration from his time with Newt, and of course, Queenie did pop on by to visit him.
From that wonderfully nuanced bit of storytelling, we are thrust into this new instalment which is forcefully trying to weave itself immediately into as much of Harry Potter's lore it can within the movie's runtime. Don't get me wrong, Jude Law played a nice rendition of a youthful Dumbledore, and his relationship with Grindelwald (brilliantly played by Johnny Depp) complicates his ability to go to war with the series antagonist; however, they abruptly insert Credence (played by Ezra Miller), whose "curse"(the Obscurus) provided quite the spectacle in the prior instalment's finale. It was saddening to see him seemingly vaporized, but we held out some form of hope that he'd survived after Newt noted that a fragment of the Obscurus survived. None of that is acknowledged in this movie, and instead we find him on a quest to unearth his family; and along for the ride, we have Nagini. Now, I had totally forgotten that Nagini was in fact Voldemort's massive snake from the Harry Potter series, but after the useless part she played in the plot, this bit of fan service just fell flat on its face.
Another atrocity is the manner in which Queenie and Jacob are handled this time around; they are in a full-blown relationship (undercover, of course), but tensions are rising between them because the tenets of the magical world forbid them from getting married. Queenie, as evidenced from her last outing, is a powerful "telepath", but it seems like they use her lovesickness to drag her character down an unlikely path.
Worst of all, however, is the poor manner in which the story is told. I realize that they laid this out as a five movie deal from the start, but that doesn't absolve them from the right to give us completely contained stories. There are so many loose ends and unnecessary plot points to this movie, that it seems that they are trying to pose all the questions that will be answered in the next 3 movies. The way that try to make Credence resoundingly important by throwing a smoke screen about his lineage was the worst of these sins. To also try to make us believe that Grindelwald has any chance of working with Credence after the final events of the first movie is beyond suspension of disbelief.
This movie shook me to my core. I've heard people call this a "cash-grab", and I certainly can't say that they're wrong. It got so bad watching this, that though there were 3 girls seated next to me fan-girling for two-thirds of the movie, I couldn't even bring myself to care about their poor cinema etiquette. There isn't much "Fantastic Beasts" about this instalment, and it remains to be seen whether they'll continue to maintain that moniker going forward because I'm certain that'll only be diluted further in subsequent sequels
In fact, I change my initial statement about this movie: this was WORSE than a Harry Potter movie. Not even worth watching on Bootleg DVD. D- material!!!
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