Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindlewald (Dir Mike Yates, 2h 13m)

Something is amiss in the world of Potter. With the franchise having celebrated its 20th anniversary by starting a new cinematic franchise, starring Newt Scamander (Eddie Redmayne channelling his inner Sir David Attenborough), the author of one of Harry's textbooks, so things seemed bright for the Wizarding World, as Rowling and Warner Bros now dub it. The Crimes of Grindlewald, the titular Dark Wizard played by Johnny Depp, is, however, a backwards step in every respect, from Depp's very casting, to the battle it slowly sets up between Grindlewald and Jude Law's Dumbledore, to its bizarre tone, pacing, and clear holding pattern for future sequels. Less a magical experience, more a squib.

What made the first film a refreshing change to the Potter series, as tired and repetitive as it became towards the end of the series, as Yates' workmanlike style put the final Potter books through their paces, was Scamander's adulthood, the care and attention that he lavished on the creatures under his care. Scamander was, in Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, a character with a well-formed idea of right and wrong, empathy, unlike his peers, to the plight of magical creatures tormented by unfair magical rules, and deeply involved in the fate of these creatures, in particular for Credence Barebone, a young man cursed to die at a young age due to a magical creature known as an inferii.

Newt thus, was an unusual protagonist in the Potter universe, a pacifist who wanted to help creatures that other shunned, help people who others had abandoned, and stood apart from those who chose sides between hiding from, and warring against, the non-wizards, or Muggles. This, along with most of the key plot points of the first film, and, indeed, much of the character of the first film in its magical road-trip to collect the monstrous contents of Scamander's suitcase, are summarily dispatched.

This messy movement from the fresh feel of the first film to the familiar march of the later Potter outings, begins with the opening scenes of the film, as Grindlewald makes his escape, and begins to build his forces, whilst Newt, on the trail of a only-mostly dead Credence, who himself is searching for his birth parents and takes the audience through a elaborate baby switching scheme that seems to take in most of the supporting cast, thus merrily undoing one of the key lessons of the first film-that Newt cannot save everyone-is tasked by Dumbledore (Jude Law), to track down Credence, before Grindlewald finds and turns the boy into a weapon. 

Scamander, for his part, is still Redmayne in likable mode-there's still a great deal of the naturalist, keen to look after his charges, new and old-and when Redmayne and his beasts are able to share a scene without Depp and co rattling around in the background, a little of the familiar magic begins to resurface, but aside from one scene where Redmayne feeds his menagerie, and another in which he rescues a lion-dog-like dragon previously entrapped in a freakshow, the film rarely has any fantastic beasts to find.

What it does have is Johnny Depp and a number of other vaguely evil looking people doing vaguely evil things. The crimes of Grindlewald are, aside from his escape that opens the film, and at least sets up the tone with a well-paced setpiece, restricted to 12A rated death and destruction, though there's a needlessly exploitative child death early in the film that may as well be accompanied by Bach organ chords and evil laughter.

Depp otherwise is woeful-in a better actor's hand, Grindlewald could well have been seductive, charming-the idea that Dumbledore and Grindlewald could retain some mutual attraction is, with Depp's pop-punk Marilyn Manson wizard look, laughable-it is a ridiculous look, and there is a sense of him entirely phoning in the performance.

In the hands of Wilhelm Defoe, Mads Mikkelsen, or another Northern European actor-Rowling's regional accuracy, as well as her Aesoep of a entire series of novels with a protagonist recovering from an abusive household seem to have fallen by the roadside, so starstruck is she-this would have been a tour-de-force of seductive malice, comparable to Ralph Fiennes' Voldemort rather than a rather directionless perfomance in a bad wig and mustache set.

Aside from one reasonable well-written moment, in which Depp successfully seduces a character to his side, there is no sense of the dark wizard being a competent leader-when the film eventually kicks into its Triumph of the Will lite rally of Grindlewald's supporters, Depp goes into what is best described as generic fascist mode. And in this one scene, the film entirely loses the plot, suggesting, in bizarre terms that Grindlewald's success will lead to the avoidance of much of the history of the early half of the 20th century, via visions from what I can only describe as a skull bong.

This includes the Second World War, including suggestions that Grindlewald's victory will stop unspecified groups "coming" for the wizarding community, in dark, and utterly inapppropriate tones that bring to mind the greatest horrors of the War. After badmouthing Paris, in one of the strangest lines in the Potter-verse, Grindlewald wanders off to set up the sequel, drop jawdroppingly weird revelations that shows Rowling will now merrily bolt on anything to keep the Potter machine runnning, and take more screentime from our real protagonist.

What Crimes of Grindlewald has, other than Johnny Depp's midlife crisis is exposition. Lots of exposition. With half a dozen plotlines, a dozen characters to busy itself with, a fair bit of countryhopping, despite Newt's travel ban outside the UK, and a further three films to set up, what results is a jumbled mess, a chessboard which Dumbledore and Grindlewald seem destined to face off across, with Newt and his fantastic beasts pushed to supporting players.

And that, alongside Depp's presence in the film, his torteous performance, and the fact that he takes so much time away from the rest of the cast, is the true crime of Grindlewald. One can only hope that this series returns to Mr Scamander and his creatures, as, otherwise, it seems destined to be far from a magical experience

Rating: Neutral