Fantastic Beasts 2: Dumbledore is sexy but the plot overburdens

All images courtesy of Warner Bros

This second instalment of JK Rowling's wonderful world of wizards follows the story of magizoologist Newt Scamander (Eddie Redmayne). When the dark wizard Gellert Grindelwald (Johnny Depp) escapes custody – following his capture in the previous film – Scamander is enlisted by Albus Dumbledore (Jude Law) to thwart Grindelwald's dastardly plans of a pure-blood wizard world. The film opens in cinemas around Beijing today, Friday 16. 

Olly Richards from Time Out reviews the new film below. TL;DR: amazing visuals, great cast and a whole new world to explore, just not enough time to do so. 

The second part in the Harry Potter spin-off provides twists and glorious visuals, but has too much plot to truly soar. These beasts are overburdened.

The first Fantastic Beasts movie had a lot of heavy lifting to do. It needed to establish a world connected to the Harry Potter universe, but also one that was self-contained. It had to introduce several busloads of new characters and kick off a story complex enough to sustain another four movies (at least). With all that done, the second instalment should have earned itself some breathing room: a bit of time to cut loose and enjoy the possibilities of a new magical universe. But as beautiful and inventive as it is, The Crimes of Grindelwald often feels like we’re starting the world-building all over again.

Trying to establish where everyone is at the beginning of this sequel without giving too much away is going to get confusing, so sorry about that. Anyway, fascist wizard Gellert Grindelwald (Johnny Depp, looking like half of Jedward after a few rough decades) has broken out of jail in London and fled to Paris to lay the groundwork for a wizard uprising. In order to stop him, the wizarding government approaches Grindelwald’s ex-friend/possibly lover Albus Dumbledore (Jude Law, relishing his fairly brief screentime), who refuses the mission but enlists the help of animal-lover Newt Scamander (Eddie Redmayne) for a more secret version of the same mission. There are about eight other major characters involved, but we’ve only got so much space. Short version: a wizard war is a-brewing.

Moving most of the action to Paris gives the film’s creative team the opportunity to run wild with some gorgeous production design. Visually, the world couldn’t be richer. Our progress through it, though, feels sluggish. As a screenwriter, JK Rowling is ambitious. She wants to pack in huge amounts of story – and there will be revelations that send dedicated fans back to the novels to re-evaluate certain events – but she plots for books, not for the screen. There are so many characters to service and so many rugs to pull that momentum can only ever be slow, because of the sheer volume of exposition needed. This story would be thrilling and have space to do its juicy saga justice in a 500-page novel. In a 135-minute movie, it’s a bit jumbled and rushed. Several major characters, particularly rebellious government witch Tina (Katherine Waterston), don’t get a lot to do because there’s so much to squeeze in.

Trailer via QQ

With its callbacks to the Potter universe and a lovely eye for detail, The Crimes of Grindelwald has bags of charm and a warm familiarity, but too many characters and too much plot are weighing this beast down.

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