The Crimes of Grindewald: Date night for Four

Hello, and Happy December, now whilst I've been celebrating the Festive period since 1st November, I can now safely say it's the Christmas period and I've been positively driving everyone at work crazy with my Christmas obsession. With this in mind I've been anxiously waiting for Grindewald's tale since September and after agreement decided to go watch this with another Potterhead and her partner; our first double date in a while. So all giddy with a brand new hair do to boot we visited our favourite hideout; The Leisure Exchange. It was post film that I found out there's rumour or 5 rather than 3 films….and honestly I can't see how they're going to keep the audience's attention after this film. I was so heartbroken coming out of this cinema, followed by another 3 disappointed and frustrated bunch. I'm not sure where to begin. Probably let's start with the script.

Q:What does and author have in common with a film script?

A: Absolutely nothing! They should stay far away and briefly consult the concept, or actually learn how to adapt a book into a film, because how Rowling along with Yates managed to screw this up is beyond me!

To be clear I didn't really like the first two films that much which I'm pretty sure Yates directed, so maybe more of the blame lands squarely on his shoulders, but as a director and with producers and diva plays Rowling may or may not have had; should have been ignored and they should have kept to the original concept that worked so well in the first film. What this film lacked was actual Fantastic Beasts. It's suffered from what you could call Michael Bay syndrome i.e. Where are the transformers in this Transformers movie, nobody cares about the people characters, we just want some Beast please. That's not to say there weren't any creatures in this film; of course the adorable and only important critter; the Niffler, made an appearance and to be fair was quite pivotal in moving some of the narrative along; but the film just lacked the pzazz

that set this part of the franchise from the OG films.

So following the narrative the opening sequence was pretty dazzling and definitely setting a good tone with a good twist, however the strength of the film wanes as we move onto Newt's storyline. Now this could be because I've never really liked Newt as a character and following all the controversy of the inclusion of Nagini as a maledictus; could have had a much more interesting premise. We get to meet his older brother Theseus, who's a stark contrast to Newt and of course involved in a 'love triangle' with Lita Lestrange (who I'm pretty sure is not the same actress as the first film but whatever).

The film has so many narrative strands; and not necessarily good ones at that, but nevertheless let's work through them. So far we have Grindewald that escapes; this isn't a spoiler as obviously there wouldn't be a film if he'd stayed captured. We have been introduced to two new characters with it's own complex arch that doesn't necessarily answer a lot of questions, and then we move onto Newt and his new creatures such as a Kelpie and of course the adorable Niffler who now has babies! With the help of Bunty who's never mentioned again puts a stop to the Niffler's shenanigans before this really weird scene of Kowalski and Queenie essentially breaking into his home. After breaking a love spell we watch a slight fight between the lovers and this really tipped the scales into bad for me because of this as the entire story arch for Queenie is a complete antithesis to her normal demeanour and doesn't make any sense for what she chooses to do later in the film.

With her disappearance to Paris to meet up with her sister (Tina), Schimander and Kowalski under the guise of a very young Dumbledore embark on a journey to find Credence (Spoiler he's not dead) and bring him under Dumbledore's protection. Now anyone whose read both the Potter series and I'm pretty sure this was the case, has never mentioned another Dumbledore other than Aberforth and Ariana, but low and behold; another plot line for the lovely Lita untangles a new revelation. We also have a new character introduced that tie Tina, Newt and Kowalski together again, before jumping back to the Credence and Nagini plot line.

Let that sink in, somehow Nagini and Credence and formed a bond and she's clearly not evil (which means maybe Voldemort wasn't so bad? just kidding!) We are introduced to Yusuf Kama who further entangles the Lestrange/ Credence plots and honestly the whole plot line is just muddled and whilst characters do need dimension a lot of the decisions taken up by the characters seemed out of the norm with little justification for the actions. Now not all is completely lost in this film, we get to see some interesting designs for creatures, my particular favourite was the Zouwu. Whilst not as adorable as the Niggler, he definitely had a beautiful design and was a combination of Toothless and the Cheshire cat for me.

Seeing familiar faces in a bit of a shambolic film was slightly surreal but everything was made better by getting to discuss my opinions with Si and our other friends, who I'm sure have even less flattering things to say about the film. We moved over to our local hang out Frankie & Benny's and ordered quite the feast to help satiate the anger sharks, and of course have a laugh at the waitress remembering me and lightly mock me for my usual order. This was a night of the good, the bad and the ugly…Hopefully Rowling will now take a step back; but up, and hopefully tie up all the loose ends that's been created in what should be called Fantastic Beast: The Crime of Rowling getting involved.

As always Ciao for now!