Finally, a movie has come out that is even more divisive than The Last Jedi. Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald released with even more of a hullabaloo surrounding it than its predecessor. Fans of the Harry Potter franchise flocked to theaters to see their favorite franchise brought to life on the big screen once more, and a good amount of them were dismayed. I consider myself a Potterhead, so of course I ran to the first showing as soon as I could too.
My disappointment was immense. The Crimes of Grindelwald was a mess of movie plot. Nearly every Harry Potter movie, with a few notable exceptions, suffers from the terrible illness of trying to fit a dense book inside of it and failing. There’s a prized skill in boiling down an incredibly large plot into a streamlined movie, and a lot of those Harry Potter movies don’t display that skill. And even though The Crimes of Grindelwald does not have a huge book behind it, it is somehow plagued by the same symptoms.
Characters are left with little to no reasoning behind their choices. Plot contrivances are a dime a dozen. Exposition is the main course in a movie that runs for about two hours. The Crimes of Grindelwald is just a big hot mess. Don’t worry though. Whether you want to know about the gosh-darned awfulness before you commit to buying a movie ticket or you just want to vent about all the problems you witnessed while watching the movie, I’m here for you. Read on if you want to see exactly how The Crimes of Grindelwald let us down.
30 Barebone Is Back
Credence Barebone is back, boys and girls, back with his surly expressions and unfortunate haircut. “How is that possible?” you might ask. “How did he survive exploding in the first movie?”
The honest answer is that we don’t know. It’s never explained how Credence survived being attacked by all those American Aurors. He just did. The sooner you swallow and accept this fact, the sooner you can swallow and accept The Crimes of Grindelwald.
29 Let Him Come To Me
Grindelwald is back in this Fantastic Beasts sequel, but this time he’s not disguised as Colin Farrell. Grindelwald still wants Credence to join him, but this time, he specifically states that he wants Credence to come to him.
Okay, Gellert Grindelwald, if that’s the case, then why did you show up at Credence’s rooftop not minutes after saying you were going to let him come to you? You literally went to him, not the other way around. Does Grindelwald not know what it means to let someone come to him?
28 All For Love
Of all the familiar characters we know from the first movie, Queenie disappoints me the most in The Crimes of Grindelwald. She elects to join Grindelwald and his movement.
The movie would have us believe that Queenie so desperately wants to marry No-Maj and fan-favorite Jacob Kowalski that she jumps at the opportunity join Grindelwald and promote the idea of Wizards no longer being in hiding. That’s great and all, but in the spirit of wanting to openly marry Jacob, she abandons him for Grindelwald.
27 A Muggle Without A Map
At some point in the movie, Jacob gets separated from everyone in Paris. He finds out from an all-too-convenient source of information that Queenie is at the Lestrange family tomb. He then takes off to go find her.
How did he know where the Lestrange family tomb is?
This is, as far as I’m aware, Jacob’s first time in France. How would he know where anything is, let alone a Wizarding family’s mausoleum? But of course, the next time we see Jacob, he’s strolling along among the crypts.
26 I Spy With My Little Eye
Magic is just too convenient sometimes. Members of the Ministry of Magic stride into Hogwarts to demand Dumbledore take action against Grindelwald. When Dumbledore says he can’t, the Ministry members do some magic wand-flicking and pull up some cloud-footage of Dumbledore and Grindelwald hanging out, all close-like and stuff.
Can wizards just access film-quality memories out of the blue?
Where did they get that? How did they get that? Wasn’t it supposed to be this big secret that Dumbledore and Grindelwald were buddies?
25 Smoke Some Skull
Grindelwald’s main method of recruiting followers is by smoking from a magic skull. Oh, you think I’m joking? Go ahead and spend ten dollars to watch this movie and find out.
Once Grindelwald takes a whiff from this device, he exhales visions of the future, including some stock footage from World War II. It made for some pretty compelling arguments for Wizard-kind’s control of society. But where did this skull hookah come from? Are we going to get any explanation for that whatsoever?
24 What Happens Beneath The Waves
In my opinion, Leta Lestrange was the best character in the whole movie. She actually goes through some character development. You find out that Leta has been plagued with guilt over the fact that she caused the end of her half-brother. It was inadvertent, but she still feels strongly about it.
She feels this so strongly that her boggart is an image of the infant falling through the water while wrapped in its sheets. Technically, she never witnessed the baby’s end herself, so how would she know what that looked like?
23 Looking For Love In All The Wrong Places
Credence spends this movie looking for his long-lost family. It’s clear from his pale-skinned moroseness that he’s just looking for love. He kind of finds it in the form of Nagini, an indentured circus performer that he helps escape. She becomes his constant companion throughout the whole movie.
However, when Grindelwald offers to take on Credence, Nagini gets left in the dust. Even though she had been supporting Credence this whole time, he abandons her for Grindelwald, who has only ever been a jerk to him.
22 When Legilimency Doesn’t Work
Queenie was introduced as a Legilimens to us in the first Fantastic Beasts movie. She never used her telepathic powers in a malicious way though. In fact, she seemed to have no control over what she could hear of other people’s thoughts.
Apparently, her Legilimency only works every so often.
Despite the fact that Grindelwald is a callous ender of lives and hater of Muggles, Queenie decides to join him in the hopes that he can change the status quo and she can be allowed to marry her very Muggle boyfriend, Jacob Kowalski.
21 Was Leta’s End Worth It?
The Crimes of Grindelwald tries to trick you into thinking that Leta will join Grindelwald at the end of the movie. She surprises us all by trying to fight him instead. She shoots some spells at his back and then gets consumed by blue flames he produced.
Her sacrifice was noble, but was it necessary?
Couldn’t she have just stood by Newt and his other anti-Grindelwald friends? Did she really have to walk up to Grindelwald and get herself burned to smithereens? I’m probably just sour that the best character this movie produced was snuffed out like a candle.
20 Niffler Discretion
I watch Fantastic Beasts movies for the beasts, and thankfully, The Crimes of Grindelwald included some Niffler moments. Nifflers are these little critters that steal shiny stuff. One such Niffler steals a very important vial from Grindelwald towards the end of the movie.
I get that Nifflers steal shiny things willy-nilly, but how did it know to get that shiny thing in particular? There were tons of other Wizards around with shiny valuables, but the Niffler zeroed in on the plot-important vial anyways.
19 His Heart’s Desire
The vial I mentioned in the last entry was so important because it is a magical object that signifies this blood-pact Dumbledore made with Grindelwald. This pact prevents Dumbledore from fighting Grindelwald. You learn this when Dumbledore looks into the Mirror of Erised and sees himself making that pact.
The Mirror of Erised shows you your heart’s deepest desire. Why would Dumbledore’s deepest desire be a flashback to a moment I’m pretty sure he regrets? Oh, right. It’s a plot contrivance.
18 Better Guards
The movie tries way too hard to tell you that Grindelwald has a silver tongue without really showing you that Grindelwald has a silver tongue.
Case in point, at the very beginning of the movie, when Grindelwald is being transferred from the United States to Britain, the American Ministry notes that they had to change the guards on Grindelwald three times because he kept being overly persuasive. And the sad part is, Grindelwald still manages to escape thanks to a guard’s help anyways.
17 Where Are His Flashy Robes?
Dumbledore’s wardrobe is nonsensically tame. I know this is a minor grievance compared to some of the others I have been listing and will continue to list, but still, I think it’s strange.
In the Harry Potter movies, Dumbledore had a penchant for wearing brightly colored robes and pointy hats. In this Fantastic Beasts sequel, Dumbledore’s outfits are so Western and drab. He spends the whole movie wearing suits, complete with waistcoat and loafers. Where is the magically adorned Dumbledore we all know and love?
16 Yours Secretly
Tina Goldstein goes to Paris at the beginning of this movie in an effort to search for Credence clandestinely. Her sister, Queenie, and Jacob head to Newt’s place in Britain instead. When Queenie mentions Tina to Newt, she says that she’s in Paris and pulls out a postcard as evidence.
Tina must have sent Queenie a postcard while on her mission.
I feel that a part of having a secret mission is keeping it secret. Sending a postcard, even if it’s to your sister, seems like a risk you probably should not be taking.
15 I Have Got To Get Me One Of These
One of the surprise appearances in the film that long-time Harry Potter fans recognized was that of Nicolas Flamel. Nicolas Flamel is the man responsible for making the Sorcerer’s/Philosopher’s Stone that we see in the first movie.
In The Crimes of Grindelwald, Flamel has this crystal ball that shows the future, and it gives him a peek of what happens at the end of the movie. Firstly, how does he have this crystal ball and why isn’t it used more in these stories? Secondly, if he had advance warning that bad stuff would happen and Apparition is a thing in this universe, why couldn’t he prevent said bad stuff?
14 The Bonds Of Sisterhood
Queenie’s decision to join Grindelwald irks me so much. The movie tries to make you understand her motivations, but it just fails completely. We all know what Queenie is like, especially after hanging out with her in the first Fantastic Beasts movie.
But she just up and abandons her sister, Tina, who is an Auror, in order to join up with the notorious Grindelwald. Did Queenie spare no thought to Tina? Does that sound like the Queenie we knew from the first movie?
13 The Snake In The Room
Nagini’s very presence in this movie is a puzzle to me. I don’t mind the fact that they’re giving a snake some backstory. J.K. Rowling, you do you. But her purpose in the movie makes no sense.
What, in the end, does Nagini contribute to the story?
She helps out Credence some, but I get the sense that he could do a lot of what he did without her. If you were to remove her from the movie, the plot would not be affected one whittle. Will she be important later on, or is she just supposed to be a fond callback to the earlier Harry Potter movies?
12 The Lizard Thing From The Beginning
It is not a good sign when the first action sequence of your movie has your audience scratching their heads in bewilderment.
Grindelwald effects his escape in the first moments of the film, and he escapes with the help of this strange reptilian-looking creature that I had to Google afterwards. Turns out, that thing was a Chupacabra, and it was meant to be an animal guard for Grindelwald. (Grindelwald’s silver tongue works with animals too, I guess.) Could I have guessed that was the case all by myself? Not at all.
11 Lestrange Romance
The romantic tension between Leta Lestrange and Newt Scamander is palpable. We know he’ll eventually end up with Tina Goldstein, but no one can deny that there was a spark between Newt and Leta that has clearly existed since they were both at Hogwarts.
If that’s the case though, why did Leta end up getting engaged to Newt’s stodgy brother, Theseus? How did that happen? Will it ever be explained? I swear, it’s like we need a prequel for this prequel to show us what these events all mean for the sequel.
