Crimes of Grindlewald - 4/10
I'm starting to get the feeling that Rowling should really have written these as books and then had them adapted by someone else. It's as if she's so intent on fleshing out her Wizarding World that she doesn't even bother to follow basic screenwriting 101 rules. Yes, those rules are meant to be broken at times, but only by those truly in control of their craft and she clearly is not a top screenwriter. There are so many crucial plot points in this movie that are related by someone, somewhere talking about it that I literally had to ignore the movie for a minute or two at one point just to piece it all together in my head so I could figure out what exactly the plot was. On top of that, while I was excited to see the American characters from the first movie in this one, I felt that everyone except Tina was blatantly shoe-horned in, and Queenie was not done any justice at all here. In fact, I'm still scratching my head over the choices she made in this film and how her character could have possibly changed so dramatically from one movie to the next.
The main thing that really causes this movie to falter though is that it does a terrible job of showing us what the central story is. There are so many competing stories and none of them seem to be given the screen time they deserved to fully invest the audience in them. For example, a central mystery of the film is who Credence's parents are. Just about none of the story about Credence's quest is actually told from his perspective. Virtually every single important detail that I can recall of his quest, is related in through exposition from one character to another without him even in the scene most of the time. He just kind of shows up at times, like some other character has predicted, and does something to move the plot, then someone else tells another character why it was important. Super. Freaking. Boring. It's like this for so many goddamn things too including and especially the climax of the film. Exposition dump after exposition dump and then brilliant visuals and effects thrown at you with little or no idea as to just what the hell is actually going on. Everything looks amazing, really better than ever, but it feels empty and I just don't freaking care. It certainly lost the attention of my 11 year old who adores Harry Potter.
Bottom line, the production values and acting in this film are all on point so far as I can tell. It's just the way the story is told that make me completely uninterested in this new series of films.
