With Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald coming out this November, I figured this was as good a time as any to revisit the Harry Potter films. And it’s the 20th anniversary of the release of Sorcerer’s Stone the book, so even more reason. I’ll be looking at the original eight two at a time, before finishing with Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. These won’t be regular reviews per se, but more of a review/reflection combination.
And in the spirit of honesty, these look-backs won’t necessarily have the same structure. Some might be long and in depth. Others might be shorter and more light-hearted. Whatever I feel the day(s) I’m writing will be what comes out. Should make it fun. Keep it spicy, I like to say.
I don’t have any sort of release schedule planned for these. Just know that I will be done before Crimes of Grindelwald is released on November 16. These are also not in conjunction with Chris’s revisiting of the Harry Potter book series (as of this blog being published, he has written about Sorcerer’s Stone, Chamber of Secrets, and Prisoner of Azkaban).
*It shouldn’t be necessary, but just to be safe: SPOILER ALERT*
The plot
Might as well get this one out of the way. The plot here is fairly weak. A wizard tires to wrangle some magical creatures he accidentally let loose? Yes, there’s the whole Grindelwald thing, which would have made for a much more interesting movie. But, the movie’s title says it all. It has to focus on the beasts. And as much fun as this movie was (and still is), its overall quality did suffer a bit due to the plot. But it has enough else to offer to make up for this to an extent.
Newt Scamander
Newt, of course, is our new hero, the Harry Potter if you will of the Fantastic Beasts series. And while Newt and Harry are vastly different in many ways, they do share some important general characteristics. First and foremost, they are both reluctant heroes. Neither of them asked to be put in the spotlight (though Harry’s fame is obviously much more widespread than Newt’s). But they both involve themselves simply because it’s the right thing to do. Newt is just a quiet guy, trying to keep to himself. But when he gets swept up into a larger, widespread conflict, he knows he can help, which means he has to step in.
Jacob Kowalski is simply a joy
While I could have done without the Kowalski’s Market tie-in, our resident No-Maj is a scene-stealing star here.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BB8iiFkhLEY
The different creatures are so much fun
Give me more of the Niffler. Give me all the Nifflers. Maybe my favorite magical creature in all of the Harry Potter universe.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-pb6aid0j4c
Pickett the Bowtruckle is adorable.
The rest (mostly) are just fun. The one exception – and it’s a huge one – is the Erumpent. This of course is the rhino-like creature that Newt does a mating dance for to get it back into his magical briefcase. Hard pass on that scene.
But as enjoyable as the creatures were, the didn’t add a whole lot to the overall story. It was clear from the beginning that there was a larger plot in play here, and the beast plot felt at times that it was taking away from the Grindelwald of it all.
The whole death sentence sequence is nonsense
It was just unnecessarily long and drawn out. Super inefficient. I know it was needed to add some extra drama, but MACUSA needs to do something to fix their process.
That’s it?
And that’s about it. And that says quite a bit about this movie. It doesn’t really do anything great, but there aren’t any glaring errors or miscues either. It’s just a solid movie. Though to be fair, if this had been an individual movie – i.e. not within the Harry Potter universe – the score likely would have been lower. You give me a Potterverse movie, I give it a respectable score (unless it’s complete trash, which luckily hasn’t happened yet).
Well, we did it. That’s all (current) Potterverse movies. Initial reactions for Crimes of Grindelwald have been mixed, but I’m still holding out hope. Look for that review this week.
