Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10
Cast: Eddie Redmayne, Jude Law, Katherine Waterston, Alison Sudol, Dan Folger, Johnny Depp, Zoe Kravitz, Callum Turner, Kevin Githrie, Ezra Miller, Claudia Kim, Cornell John, Carmen Ejogo, Wolf Hall, Derek Riddell, Rosie Corby-Tuech, Ingvar Eggert Sigursosson, Andrew Turner, Alfrun Rose, Janie Campbell Bower, Brontis Jodorowsky, Hugh Quarshie, Keith Chanter.
Some actions undertaken in life require no justification for their existence, and regardless of what you may think of the whole Harry Potter Universe and its ever-growing list of additions and supplements, what cannot be denied is the way in which J.K. Rowling has endeavoured to bring audiences together, either through the volumes of pages, or through the effect of the cinema screen.
It could also be argued that the prequel to the Harry Potter series of books, Fantastic Beasts, has the power to be more enduring and racked with tension, truly terrifying for the imagination because Johnny Depp’s portrayal of Grindelwald is a force that inhabits a darker time for humanity, it plays with the period between the two world wars as if it was part of the reality, the underlaying threat of the darkness that was to befall Europe overriding the sentiment of a world in which Harry Potter and his friends were perhaps seen to be cut off from the reality of their own period and lives.
Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald is a brute of a film, not only does it capture the magic of the original Harry Potter films but with wonder at its side, it goes beyond, it feeds into the schism that was arguably felt between the wars, the rise of the enigmatic and persuasive force that hid true evil under its skin. It is to the testament of both J.K. Rowling and Johnny Depp that such a portrayal of malevolence is brought to the screen and one that surprisingly is a far greater representation than even Ralph Fiennes as Lord Voldemort was able to bring to the screen.
It is in the relationship between Grindelwald, Eddie Redmayne’s Newt Scamander and Jude Law’s younger version of Albus Dumbledore which captivates and lights up the screen, but also the flowing dynamic between Dan Folger and Alison Sudol’s Queenie Goldstein is poignant, the love that binds is also the tenderness that cracks as sides are chosen, the schism that is reflected in the period that bookended the start of the 20th Century is played out in these two fascinating groups.
A series of cinematic experiences that captures the imagination of J.K. Rowling perfectly, Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald is a wonderful and enlightening addition.
Ian D. Hall