At over 130 minutes, this film was unnecessarily long. Someone should keep JK Rowling away from writing screenplays. Sure she has great ideas and stories to tell, but like her later books, she tend to sprawl and needlessly confound and confuse just to add padding. Other than some really good set pieces, a few exciting action sequences (and also a few messy ones), imaginative use of CGI/3D-technology (breaking out of the screen format was cool) and a great score by James Newton Howard, the film lacked the originality, spark and cast chemistry that led the first instalment to be such a delight. The cast expanded and we spent more time on Johnny Depp and Ezra Miller's characters - which were interesting unto themselves but they lacked depth and worthy companions to interact with - than the original foursome whose excellent chemistry fueled the narrative of the first. This film felt like a placeholder film, setting the pieces in motion, to the franchise and finale (maybe 5 films is too much...).
Eddie Redmayne remained the star of the show. Well, he and the Fantastic Beasts...the Nifflers are back too!...but a pity that Rowling and director David Yates, have pivoted the intention of the story from Newt Scamander to the deep mythos of Grindelwald and Dumbledore, and so Scamander's adventures took a backseat. Although, Redmayne remained the lead, but his scenes seemed perfunctory to the greater narrative, and only driven by his romance with the criminally underused Katherine Waterston.
The focus on Depp's Grindelwald and Miller's Credence could have been better if Rowling and company had spent their time developing them as characters. Voldemort had the benefit of five books (and films) before we spent an entire installment on him, The Half-Blood Prince. And so, it resulted in two main characters who were driven and defined by exposition rather than complexity.
Similarly, because the story line was spread out amongst so many characters, almost all the newer characters also seemed to be just as similar thinly scratched.
Zoe Kravitz's Leta Lestrange is a Lestrange (!! of Bellatrix and Delphine!!) but she nary got a purpose other than to drive a strand of narrative. Her supposed relationship with the Scamander brothers were just as vague as her supposed standing in the wizarding community.
Speaking of Newt's brother, Callum Turner turned in a fine performance as Theseus, and he was one of the few new characters who seemed more thought out, but still rather pedestrian.
Depp was good in his role as Grindelwald. Better than he has in years with a reined-in performance that sold the menace but mercifully left out the camp. A pity they played down his character's history with Dumbledore, although it was not like Depp and Jude Law had scenes together.
Law's Dumbledore - like in the Harry Potter books - is again a central figure in the story and a master manipulator of young, impressionable men. Maybe we should start spending more time with him as a real character rather than as a deux ex machina device.
Fan favourites Jacob and Queenie (Dan Folger and Alison Sudol) got decidedly less to do this time round, although Sudol seemed to be getting a rather juicy arc which will be interesting to watch. Although it was the strength and chemistry between Folger and her that gave teh first instalment so much heart (and levity...which was so lacking here).
And lastly, about Miller. Fashion's It-Boy of the moment can act (see: We Need to Talk About Kevin), but here he just appears lost, stoned and adrift. Those characteristics described his character but it did not make him an appealing, or even an interesting, character to focus on. Hopefully things improve with the big cliffhanger, reveal.
Back to the plot, like aforementioned, Rowling can plot a good yarn and she obviously cares about her characters and have a deep knowledge about them. But sometimes, the plots just get away from her and she relies too much on twists to hook the audience in, hoping that she could blindside them into forgetting about the other trivialities of logic and narrative holes.
Yates' direction was efficient and he has a good handle on the use of 3D, although his directing of complicated action sequences still need work. The opening sequence especially, albeit exciting was still a tad messy and complicated. I guess, in that respect, it did kind of set the tone for the rest of the film.
This film, for all its flaw, was a delight to watch in 3D and in IMAX. It really used the technology to its advantage. Only thing was if it was really worth the price. And if only solely for the 3D and Howard's excellent score blasting out from an IMAX theatre, it would definitely have got an A, but as a whole, it was an expensive and tiresome way to spend 134 minutes.
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