A movie this expensive and with a fan base as large as that has no right being this awful.
The problem lies within the conception of this new saga. Either you tell a story of a magical zookeper with his cute baby Nifflers and quirky adventures to make children and easy to please adults go "awwww" or you tell a convoluted story about gay love, Dumbledore, Nazis and the Wizarding World War.
Those should be two different things.
They don't gel together at all.
Why is Newt seen as a perfect candidate to look for Credence? Just so he can be in the movie again? The less said about the return of Jacob the better. Nagini is now a girl with a curse on her? And wizards pay to see her change into a snake in a circus. But Rowling already established, that changing into animals is what many wizards can do and it shouldn't be special at all. Even teachers and journalists in Harry Potter could do it. All this does is make everything more confusing. So Neville killed a Korean lady in the last movie? How awful! Way to steal his moment!
It's just things like this that drag this movie down. The Titanic, Leta LeStrange, brother of Newt, Tina, Queenie (roofing Jacob to marry him, then joining the Nazis???), Grindelwald, Dumbledore, Credence (Dumbledore's brother?) .. the list goes on an on. This movie is bloated and stuffed with too many characters and plot lines I didn't care about. This is what you get when you want to please everyone.
It made me smile when, at the end of the movie, all characters stand on the bridge at Hogwarts just to look at Newt having a talk with Dumbledore while being out of earshot. It's just a hilarious b-movie moment and that the director was serious about it makes it even more funny.
This movie stumbles around with Newt and his fantastic beasts tied to one leg and a heap of uninteresting charactes on the other, being always where the plot needs him to. He has no business being there - similar to this movie.
JK Rowling and Warner seem to think that all fans want is more lore thrown at them. But it's the characters that drew us into the world of Harry Potter.
This franchise is in trouble. You can see it already by the evolution of the respective movie posters. In FANTASTIC BEASTS AND WHERE TO FIND THEM, the main characters and 20's New York are on the cover. Next up in GRINDELWALD are a boatload of characters and the Eiffel tower in the background (FANTASTIC BEASTS already very small in the logo). And for DUMBLEDORE'S SECRETS (part 3) we have Hogwarts big on the cover. It's like Warner, Rowling and the producers are so desperate as to shout "Please come back, it's about Hogwarts again!!! It's things you know!! Nostalgia!!"
I think people are already more discerning today and don't have blind loyalty to a franchise that just doesn't deliver and doesn't know what it wants. It's gonna be tough if they really want to make 5 movies total of these. I can't see this gaining more fans over time.
I give it 4/10 because relative to it's budget and fan base, it was just awful.
By the way - what were the crimes of Grindelwald? Were that numerous that they warrant this title? I think not.
The problem lies within the conception of this new saga. Either you tell a story of a magical zookeper with his cute baby Nifflers and quirky adventures to make children and easy to please adults go "awwww" or you tell a convoluted story about gay love, Dumbledore, Nazis and the Wizarding World War.
Those should be two different things.
They don't gel together at all.
Why is Newt seen as a perfect candidate to look for Credence? Just so he can be in the movie again? The less said about the return of Jacob the better. Nagini is now a girl with a curse on her? And wizards pay to see her change into a snake in a circus. But Rowling already established, that changing into animals is what many wizards can do and it shouldn't be special at all. Even teachers and journalists in Harry Potter could do it. All this does is make everything more confusing. So Neville killed a Korean lady in the last movie? How awful! Way to steal his moment!
It's just things like this that drag this movie down. The Titanic, Leta LeStrange, brother of Newt, Tina, Queenie (roofing Jacob to marry him, then joining the Nazis???), Grindelwald, Dumbledore, Credence (Dumbledore's brother?) .. the list goes on an on. This movie is bloated and stuffed with too many characters and plot lines I didn't care about. This is what you get when you want to please everyone.
It made me smile when, at the end of the movie, all characters stand on the bridge at Hogwarts just to look at Newt having a talk with Dumbledore while being out of earshot. It's just a hilarious b-movie moment and that the director was serious about it makes it even more funny.
This movie stumbles around with Newt and his fantastic beasts tied to one leg and a heap of uninteresting charactes on the other, being always where the plot needs him to. He has no business being there - similar to this movie.
JK Rowling and Warner seem to think that all fans want is more lore thrown at them. But it's the characters that drew us into the world of Harry Potter.
This franchise is in trouble. You can see it already by the evolution of the respective movie posters. In FANTASTIC BEASTS AND WHERE TO FIND THEM, the main characters and 20's New York are on the cover. Next up in GRINDELWALD are a boatload of characters and the Eiffel tower in the background (FANTASTIC BEASTS already very small in the logo). And for DUMBLEDORE'S SECRETS (part 3) we have Hogwarts big on the cover. It's like Warner, Rowling and the producers are so desperate as to shout "Please come back, it's about Hogwarts again!!! It's things you know!! Nostalgia!!"
I think people are already more discerning today and don't have blind loyalty to a franchise that just doesn't deliver and doesn't know what it wants. It's gonna be tough if they really want to make 5 movies total of these. I can't see this gaining more fans over time.
I give it 4/10 because relative to it's budget and fan base, it was just awful.
By the way - what were the crimes of Grindelwald? Were that numerous that they warrant this title? I think not.