The tenth film in the Wizarding World franchise opens with a prison break and never quite settles down. Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald, directed by David Yates from a screenplay by J.K. Rowling, runs 134 minutes and carries the tagline “Fate of one. Future of all.” It premiered in Paris on 8 November 2018 and reached theaters in the United Kingdom and United States on 16 November 2018 through Warner Bros. Pictures. It is a fantasy adventure that wants to be a political thriller, a family tragedy and a creature feature at once. It gets closest to the middle one.
Trailer, via Warner Bros..
A Prison Transfer That Goes Wrong
The film sets its terms early. In 1927, the Magical Congress of the United States of America is moving Gellert Grindelwald to Europe to stand trial. He escapes. That is the engine of everything that follows, and Johnny Depp plays him as a patient man who has already won the argument in his own head.
Three months later, Newt Scamander, played by Eddie Redmayne, asks the Ministry of Magic to lift his international travel ban. He runs into Leta Lestrange, his former Hogwarts classmate and the fiancée of his brother Theseus. Zoë Kravitz plays Leta, and Callum Turner plays Theseus. The Ministry offers Newt a deal: help Theseus find Credence Barebone in Paris. Newt declines when he learns he would work alongside the bounty hunter Gunnar Grimmson.
Albus Dumbledore, played by Jude Law, also asks Newt to find Credence. Dumbledore believes Credence is Leta’s long-lost half-brother, Corvus Lestrange V. The film reveals Dumbledore indirectly but intentionally sent Newt to New York in the previous picture. That is the most interesting thing The Crimes of Grindelwald does with Law. It makes him a man who moves other people rather than one who moves himself.
Queenie, Jacob and the Marriage Ban
The film’s best material sits with the supporting pair. Queenie Goldstein, played by Alison Sudol, and Jacob Kowalski, played by Dan Fogler, arrive in London with a problem the plot cannot fix. Jacob is a No-Maj, a non-magical person, and American wizarding law forbids marriage between wizards and No-Majs. Queenie enchanted him to get him to London. Newt lifts the enchantment. Jacob then refuses to marry her, because he fears what she would face.
Sudol plays the hurt plainly. Fogler plays the fear plainly. It is the one strand of the film that behaves like a story about people instead of a story about a franchise.
Jacob has regained the memories that were erased the previous year. The film explains why: Swooping Evil venom, the substance used to obliviate New York City in the first film, only erases bad memories. Meeting Newt, Queenie and Tina and learning about magic was not a bad memory for him. That is a clean piece of internal logic, and the film deserves credit for it.
Credence and Nagini in Paris
Ezra Miller returns as Credence Barebone, the abused adopted son of Mary-Lou Barebone. In Paris, Credence escapes the Circus Arcanus with the captive performer Nagini, played by Claudia Kim. Nagini is a woman cursed to transform into a snake permanently. Searching for his birth mother, Credence locates the half-elf servant Irma Dugard, who brought him to America for adoption.
The Paris section is where the film’s sprawl becomes a problem. There are too many people looking for Credence, and the film keeps adding them. Katherine Waterston returns as Tina Goldstein, now a promoted MACUSA Auror, and she spends much of the runtime searching. Carmen Ejogo appears as Seraphina Picquery. Jessica Williams appears as Eulalie Hicks. William Nadylam and Kevin Guthrie are in the ensemble. Each arrival costs the film momentum it does not get back.
The Casting Question
Depp was cast in November 2016, and the decision drew controversy because of domestic violence allegations made against him. Law signed on in April 2017. Rowling confirmed in July 2016 that she had completed the script, and a second Fantastic Beasts film had been announced in October 2014.
Principal photography began in July 2017 at Warner Bros. Studios, Leavesden, in England. Filming also took place in London, Switzerland and Paris, and wrapped in December 2017. The production values hold up. The film looks like money was spent on it, and Yates, directing his seventh Wizarding World film, knows how to stage a set piece.
What the film does not know how to do is stop explaining. The Crimes of Grindelwald carries more exposition than the first film and wears it worse. Characters announce relationships, reveal parentage and restate the stakes in rooms that exist only to move information.
Where the Money Went
The numbers tell their own story. Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald grossed $654.9 million worldwide, making it the tenth highest-grossing film of 2018. It also became the lowest-grossing instalment of the Wizarding World franchise.
That gap matters. A film can be the tenth biggest of its year and still be a disappointment if the series it belongs to has trained audiences to expect more. The first Fantastic Beasts film, released in 2016, established Newt as a creature specialist with a light touch. The sequel buries him in Ministry politics and Grindelwald’s recruitment drive. The creatures are still there. They are no longer the point.
Ranking the film’s problems in order of severity:
- The script treats revelation as a substitute for development, so late twists land with a shrug rather than a jolt.
- Grindelwald’s cause — elevating wizards above all non-magical beings — is stated clearly but never given a persuasive advocate, because Depp plays him as a whisper rather than a threat.
- The Credence parentage thread, which should be the emotional spine, gets resolved in a way the film does not earn.
- Newt, the series’ supposed lead, is a passenger in his own movie.
That last one is the real cost. Redmayne is charming and the performance is fine. But the film keeps handing the important decisions to Dumbledore, to Leta, to Grindelwald, and asking Newt to witness them.
What Actually Works
Leta Lestrange is the best-written character in the film. Kravitz gets the only arc that moves in a straight line: a woman caught between a brother she is engaged to and a past she cannot explain. The film gives her a genuine choice and lets her make it.
The Queenie and Jacob strand also lands, partly because it is small. Two people love each other and the law will not allow it. That is a complete idea, and the film does not need a war to make it hurt.
The production design, the Paris setting and the 1927 period detail all hold. The film is never boring to look at. It is frequently boring to listen to.
The Verdict
Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald is a middle chapter that behaves like a middle chapter. It sets up more than it pays off, it introduces characters it does not have time to develop, and it asks the audience to care about a war that has not started yet. The Queenie and Jacob material proves the series can still do small and human. The rest of the film proves it would rather do large and loud.
The lowest-grossing instalment of the Wizarding World franchise is not the worst one. It is the most confused one. There is a good film inside these 134 minutes about a divided wizarding world and the people caught on either side of the line. The Crimes of Grindelwald keeps almost finding it and then handing the scene back to Dumbledore.
KEY FACTS
- Title: Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald
- Release year: 2018
- Director: David Yates
- Writer: J.K. Rowling
- Runtime: 134 minutes
- Theatrical release: 16 November 2018 (UK and US)
- Paris premiere: 8 November 2018
- Worldwide gross: $654.9 million
- 2018 rank: tenth highest-grossing film of the year
- Franchise position: second Fantastic Beasts film, tenth Wizarding World film
- Score: 6.8 of 10
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