Fantastic Beasts 2: Hopes & Fears

Are y’all excited for Warner Bros’ ‘Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald’ (also known as ‘Let’s make money from our previous successes for as long as we possibly can’). Yes? Well that’s good news for Warner Bros.

Don’t worry though; as a major Harry Potter fan I understand the need to desperately cling to any new piece of wizarding world. That’s also why I suspect that much like me, you are hoping for the best and fearing the worst while awaiting the newest ‘let’s milk Harry’ production. For sensitive fanboys- and girls, being prepared when you enter that cinema may prevent disappointment and utter despair before the credits start rolling (“rolling”, that reminds me of that joke; how does Harry Potter go down the hill? Running! JK ROWLING lol)

So let’s make this scientific; we’re going to analyse all that we know about the upcoming gay wizard romance movie (it’s young Dumbledore and Grindelwald, so I’m expecting some sparks here) and make a prediction whether this movie will be ’quite enjoyable’, ‘mildly pleasing’, ‘meh’ or ‘absolutely distasteful’.

Step 1: Other Follow-Up Franchise Experiences

Movie franchises are like milk; they have an expiring date, and once they’re expired, you can think of nicer ways to die. This is not an exaggeration; people have truly died of horror while watching certain Star Wars instalments. The difficulty, of course, is to determine whether or not the milk really has gone bad. That’s why we will go to;

Step 2: Fantastic Beasts And Where To Find Them

This was not bad at all, actually. Nice story, some likeable characters (pointing at Newt, Queenie and the fat muggle), looked quite spectacular and magical. It did not have the same level of magic as the original Harry Potter franchise though. I blame this in large part on the absence of Hogwarts (which also affected the first Deathly Hallows). Good news: The Crimes of Grindelwald will partly take place in Hogwarts; providing a reason to expect this movie to be even better than the first.

Step 3: The Trailer

Trailers tell us many things, but not always the truth. I experienced this first-hand when I saw the trailer of Pan’s Labyrinth a few years ago and thought: “let’s have a fun, light-hearted movie evening all by myself with this cute and innocent child’s movie” and was left traumatised. The Crimes of Grindelwald trailer, I believe, is much more honest, since we already know what the movie is about and the genre and atmosphere of the film can’t be a surprise.

As I’ve already mentioned, one of the most promising things is the return to Hogwarts. The castle is clearly featured in the trailers. Of all special places in the wizarding world, Hogwarts is without doubt many people’s favourite. New York was fine in the previous Fantastic Beasts, but it’s just not as magical as the Scottish schoolgrounds.

What’s more, we get a glimpse of Dumbledore’s hesitation to fight the love of his life, which promises a very close look at this bittersweet story. Also seen in the trailer: Newt’s mysterious former love interest Leta Lestrange. She may be interesting. Furthermore, lots of beasties. Albino Johnny Depp. Normal fire and blue fire. References to real-world politics. Suggestive whispering: “Nagini…”. People doing magic. Nice architecture. Fancy costumes. Epic landscapes. The muggle dude will apparently be back too. I like him. Surprising amount of water. Gingers. Office-worker bashing. Dancing. Credence. Wait; didn’t he die??. And is that the Mirror of Erised?? And is that Dumbledore seeing Grindelwald in the Mirror of Erised??? *faints

Step 4: Public Expectations

Are surprisingly high. You’d think that we would be wary from other sequel franchises (or prequels; *cough- Star Wars -cough*) but we clearly aren’t. That’s a good thing. I like this optimism. You see, the Crimes of Grindelwald currently has a score of 9,1 by several overly enthusiastic people on IMDB. If you are one of them, just a reminder: we should wait to trash-talk movies until we’ve seen them just as much as we should wait to applaud them.

Anyway, there has been some criticism as well. Mostly aimed at poor Johnny. I like Johnny and have a lot of faith in him, so I will say no more on this topic. Second, people are apparently afraid that the only Asian in this movie is about to become an animal slave to a certain white Dark Lord, and that’s politically incorrect. However, the actress playing the animal/Asian lady said this is all nonsense and we should live by the just mentioned rule of waiting until we’ve actually seen the movie.

So you know what? At this point, your opinion doesn’t matter as you haven’t seen the movie yet. Mine doesn’t either. Let’s move on to the only thing truly worth knowing about this movie;

Step 5: Only Thing That Actually Really Matters Right Now

There will be baby nifflers in this film. Baby nifflers!!

Verdict: Quite Enjoyable. Go Watch.

Let us ignore step 1 to 4. Just read 5 and buy a ticket. I wish you two magical hours, byebye!