After what has felt like forever, but has really only been two years, Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald has finally been released in cinemas. Sitting in front of the big screen before the film had started, bucket of pop corn and Tango ice blast at the ready, I was so excited to have my mind blown again by another instalment from the wizarding world. After only 20 minutes into the film, I was thinking to myself 'this is amazing' and I continued to think that for the remainder of the time I was sat there. It was better than I ever thought it could be, I loved every second of it.
Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald was absolutely incredible, even better than the first one in my opinion. I had heard a couple of negative reviews this week that I hoped to God would be wrong, and I'm so happy to say that they were so wrong (and I'm not just saying that because I'm biased.) Reviewers this week had written that some characters were pointless, they thought it was too tame and that Eddie Redmayne's portrayal of Newt Scamander was not up to par; my God I don't think they could have been more wrong. Set in Paris in 1927, Newt, Jacob, Tina and Queenie return for even more dangerous and thrilling adventures; following on from the last movie, Grindelwald is now on the loose on the magical streets of Paris and no one is safe.
This movie we are introduced to some new characters, Newts older brother Theseus, his love interest Leta Lestrange, Nagini the Maledictus and of course a fresh faced Albus Dumbledore. While the story was following a lot of old and new characters, I did find there was quite a lot happening as we jumped from Newt and Jacob in England, to Grindelwald and his companions in Paris, to Tina and French-African wizard Yusuf Kama disguising Credence in a cafe. Don't get me wrong, this didn't make the film any less amazing, it was just a lot of different events and information to take in in a short amount of time. While we only really get a glimpse at these newly introduced characters, I'm sure we will get to explore them a lot more in the next three Fantastic Beast instalments. I found there was some character development with the recurring characters, Credence for example, who is now one of the most important character is the franchise, who spend the entire movie trying to figure out who his family really are after realising he was an Obscurus with very magical powers. One of my favourite parts of the movie was the flashback to Newts Hogwarts days and seeing a young Newt with jars of tiny magical creatures and taking care of an injured baby crow, not to mention we also get to see what his and Leta's relationship was like in their younger days. I loved that we got to see more of the characters backgrounds here, it helps us to see how the characters have grown and changed over the course of their lives and definitely makes the story feel more intimate and familiar. Despite all the crazy chaos and compelling magic, they still managed to slip in a few adorable and beautiful 'fantastic beasts' that we saw in the first movie, like Pickett the Bowtruckle and my personal favourite, the baby Nifflers.
The incredible plot twist of a cliffhanger with Grindelwald telling Credence who he really is literally left me speechless. This left me wanting so much more, I need to know what happens next and knowing I'll have to wait another two years is going to kill me. Knowing that soon we'll see Dumbledore and Grindelwald put their past behind them and fight each other in an epic battle only gets me more excited and eager for the next three instalments. I thought this film was much much darker than the first and much more thrilling as I attempted to piece things together in my head and tried make sense of the pure-blood family tree that played an important part in the movie. It made me laugh and it left me with sparks in my stomach and feeling speechless, so it must have been a good movie. I am already counting days until Fantastic Beasts 3; so move over Voldemort, there's a new baddie in town.
Have you seen Fantastic Beasts yet? What did you think of this instalment and was there anything I said that you disagreed with? Leave me a comment below letting me know what you thought of this magical movie, I'd love to see what you thought. Thank you for reading my little review!
India X
*All images used are from Google Images*