«The Crimes of Grindelwald» or how to make money4 reading minutes

Cinema Wednesdays - Lauriane Pipoz and Jonas Follonier

Here comes the second part of the new saga Fantastic animals, set in the same fictional universe as the film series Harry Potter. Suffice to say, we'd heard and heard about this film-event with its equally historic budget. And it's fair to say that fans of the wizard, from older teenagers to relatively young adults. J. K. Rowling, author of bestseller who gave birth to this icon of the marvellous, signs the script for this new series of films. If the first instalment, released two years ago, had convinced us, this second episode failed to arouse our enthusiasm. Far from it.

Empty characters and dialogue

The first critical element to mention is the treatment of the characters. These are obviously of central importance, since followers of J. K. Rowling and the world she has imagined want to know more about Norbert Dragonneau and Gellert Grindelwald, characters only mentioned in Harry Potter, and on Albus Dumbledore as a young man, when he was still teaching Defense Against the Forces of Evil at Hogwarts School. Alas! emptiness prevails over a well-crafted story, a fact also confirmed by the low-quality dialogue.

The script sometimes seems to get lost among the many characters introduced. The spectator is faced with a very dense cast and scenes that follow one another with no apparent link to the main plot: we go from Gellert Grindelwald to Queenie Goldstein and Jacob Kowalski, to Nagini, the snake that will later serve as Voldemort's instrument, then to Leta Lestrange... Deprived of a breadcrumb trail, the spectator finds himself at times almost as perplexed as Jacob Kowalski at the heart of the world of magic in the first part of the saga.

Lame references to Harry Potter

But here's the worst part: while the whole point of this series of films from the 2010s and (unfortunately) 2020s lies in its link with Harry Potter, In this case, we find approximate winks where we would have liked more depth. The lake scene, reminiscent of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire? Nullity. The scene of the child watching Grindelwald before being killed? Nullity. The parallel between Grindelwald's return and Lord Voldemort's return? Nonsense. Dumbledore crying in front of the Mirror of the Riséd? Nonsense.

There are also some major inconsistencies in the script. If the screenwriter wanted to play the nostalgia card with fans of the Sorcerer's Apprentice, she introduces us to a Minerva McGonagall who has no business being there: the latter, who should have been born in 1935, is about twenty years old in the flashbacks of this second part. However, the story is supposed to take place in...1927. What's more, Dumbledore's self-confident personality doesn't match up to that shown in the magical world of’Harry Potter.

This is how the saga is understood Fantastic animals arrived at her second film: a remake of’Harry Potter. Despite the pleasure of rediscovering the well-realized scenery and a few funny scenes, we think this second installment will soon be consigned to oblivion.

Write to the authors:
lauriane.pipoz@leregardlibre.com
jonas.follonier@leregardlibre.com

Photo credit: © Warner Bros