Category: Review

J.K Rowling and director David Yates latest entry into the global phenomenon that is the Harry Potter Universe is a complete disaster. With story-lines that don’t add up and character motivations revealed so ham-fistedly, this newest installment feels more like a chapter from the book series, rather than a coherent film.

In this, we return to the Wizarding World once again, but this time to find that Grindelwald (a horribly miscast Johnny Depp in a role which would have fit Colin Farrell like a glove) has escaped captivity and has fled to Paris. It then becomes up to animal lover Newt Scammander (a likable Eddie Redmayne) and other returning characters to track him down.

The main issue in a film with an astonishing run time of 2 hours and 13 minutes, is that nothing actually happens. J.K Rowling attempts to add in several new characters to the series but whilst still trying to juggle story-lines from the previous film. The result is a seemingly fast-paced mess where characters get hints of an arc but it never really comes to fruition.

What is the cause of this? A very unskilled screenwriter in the form of J.K Rowling. Credit where Credits due, the story is there. If this were a book series, it would be a worthy addition to the Harry Potter Literacy Canon. However, Rowling’s ideas don’t translate well onto the big screen. The climax of a film of this nature can’t be the main characters standing in a room spouting exposition. The film needs to have small, subtle moments of character development where the audience can relate. Instead, we get the characters chasing each other around for 2 hours.

Brief moments, such as (a very underused but memorable) Dumbledore and his romantic entanglement to Grindelwald are only glimpsed at, yet those story-lines are more memorable than whatever else was going on. But this second installment still feels like they’re trying to hard to set up the future, rather than just having fun in the present. There may be hope for the next 3, but being 2 films deep into this series it feels like we’re still treading water, waiting for the real magic to begin.