The Crimes of Grindelwald Opens at the Close

Release Date：Nov/16/2018
Genre：Adventure/Family/Fantasy
Director：David Yates
Cast：Eddie Redmayne、Johnny Depp、Ezra Miller、Jude Law、Callum Turner

Viola's Rating：5.4

Once again, Potterheads pick up their wands, follow the celebrated magizoologist Newt Scamander back to the Wizarding World for more magical adventures and dig out more about other fantastic beasts and the crimes of Grindelwald as the sequel of “Fantastic Beasts” series was released on Nov. 16, 2018.

“Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald” is the second episode of the series set in J.K. Rowling's Wizarding World featuring the adventures of magizoologist Newt Scamander (Eddie Redmayne). This adventurous family fantasy focuses on all the historical events Newt encounters while he’s collecting information and taking field trips for his book “Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them”, the classic textbook for Magizoology.

Although more secrets are discovered in “Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald”, it’s still under the “Fantastic Beasts” series, different kinds of fantastic beasts besides Bowtruckles and Nifflers, which we saw in the previous feature film, are seen, and a bunch of other new faces are shown including some exotic ones such as Kappa from Japan and Zouwu from China.

Potterheads who specialize in the novels may notice a host of Easter eggs hidden in “Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald” that can present extra pleasure and surprises watching the film. Moreover, Rowling takes all the audience back to the familiar Hogwarts’ campus, which probably stirs Potterheads’ nostalgic feelings.

However, even though “Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald” gives a large number of contents relating to moviegoers’ experience with Harry Potter series, Potterheads get more questions than answers after watching it. As the second installment of five, this flick needs not only to develop different plots but also to introduce important and new characters altogether within 134 minutes. Audience might find themselves confused after watching “Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald” because there are a lot of elements seemed unrelated to the storyline that we don’t know whether it’ll reappear in the future parts.

Basically, there are three main plots going on in “Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald”: Credence’s identity, the origin of Nagini and three romances: Dumbledore & Grindelwald, Jacob & Queenie and Newt & Tina. These complicated settings make it a motion picture that requires one-hundred percent concentration so that Potterheads stay on all the traces Rowling gave out.

Due to the attribute that a fair amount of information is given in “Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald”, no actual storyline is propelled and leaves a huge question mark in the end of the movie. We can only say that The Crimes of Grindelwald “opens at the close” “for the greater good” until it leads us to the Wizarding World again.

Picture Credit: IMDb