FANTASTIC BEASTS: THE CRIMES OF GRINDELWALD Review

At this point in our cultural landscape the reaction one has to the latest film set in J.K. Rowling’s wizarding world is largely dependent upon your history and affiliation with said wizarding world. It’s difficult to even comprehend the amount of lives Rowling’s work has impacted and become a major component of since the Harry Potter franchise became a worldwide phenomenon nearly two decades ago. The plan for the Fantastic Beasts franchise, outside of continuing to make money off the brand, was to hopefully introduce a new, younger generation to this world through new stories while naturally entrancing those who came to the world of muggles and magical folk in real time. Harry Potter has now been a part of my life longer than it hasn’t-twice as long nearly-and so, it is always with great anticipation and interest that I approach anything Rowling does even if the cultural temperature is a bit cooler than it used to be. Though initially pessimistic towards the idea of expanding the Potterverse via New York City in the twenties and based around the guy who wrote one of Harry and his friend’s textbooks, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them turned out to be a rather charming introduction to a new facet of this world we only thought we knew; casting a strong enough spell to leave audiences wanting more adventures in the life of Mr. Newt Scamander (Eddie Redmayne). With Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald Rowling and franchise director David Yates (the last four HP films as well as the first Fantastic Beasts movie) pick up the story they started two years ago some three months later in a sequel that ultimately serves as a series of revelations for the series’ main players while potentially changing everything we know about one of the Potterverse’s most important characters. The fact the franchise has moved and is moving in the direction of utilizing more primary Potter characters is a double-edged sword given it's hard not to want to see familiar aspects of this familiar world, but there is something of a greater desire to see an aspect completely independent of the events and characters in the Harry Potter stories so as to not potentially spoil what we already love. In other words, while I’m all in for further exploration of the magical world mythology and continuous world-building Rowling is so good at the fact of the matter is The Crimes of Grindelwald might have been more consistently engaging if it’d found a more entertaining story through which to convey these new developments.

First Trailer for FANTASTIC BEASTS: THE CRIMES OF GRINDELWALD

Yesterday the wizarding world was warned to get their #WandsReady in preparation for today's premiere of our first look at the follow-up to 2016's Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them and here we are. This sequel, said to be the second film in a planned five film franchise, picks up where the first film concluded by following-up the reveal that Colin Farrell's Percival Graves was actually the powerful Dark wizard Gellert Grindelwald as played by Johnny Depp. The titular Grindelwald was captured by the Magical Congress of the United States of America with the help of our hero, Eddie Redmayne's Newt Scamander, but Grindelwald has since escaped custody and set about gathering followers, most unsuspecting of his true agenda to raise pure-blood wizards to rule over all non-magical beings. With The Crimes of Grindelwald, returning director David Yates (who also helmed the fifth, sixth, and both parts of the seventh Harry Potter films) and sole screenwriter and creator of this wizarding world, J.K. Rowling, we pick-up with a younger Albus Dumbledore than we've ever seen before as portrayed by newcomer to the series Jude Law as he enlists his former student, Scamander, to help in an effort to thwart Grindelwald’s plans completely unaware of the dangers that lie ahead. While this trailer certainly matches the implied epicness of such a synopsis and it is cool to see this world continue to expand as it seems much of the action in The Crimes of Grindelwald takes place in Paris I can only hope that Yates is able to remain in a genuinely creative and innovative headspace rather than becoming complacent with his position in this universe. Still, this first look appears to be all a fan could want from a film inspired by Rowling's world and I'm more than intrigued to see where this film intends to take the series as a whole. Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald also stars Katherine Waterston, Alison Sudol, Dan Fogler, Ezra Miller, Zoe Kravitz, Alison Sudol, Callum Turner, Claudia Kim, Carmen Ejogo, Jessica Williams, and opens in theaters on November 16th.

HOT TUB TIME MACHINE 2 Review

I don’t know if it’s because I’m older and maybe less impressionable, but while I found the original Hot Tub Time Machine to be humorous in its attempt at pure ridiculousness this sequel seems to be latching so hard to the absurdity of the first that it just falls flat on its face every single time it tries. I guess trying is maybe too kind of a word as it seems that is the last thing on the people behind this debacles mind as they contort and twist their way around one too many reasons why John Cusack isn’t back for this go around. I can’t say it really adds or takes away anything with Cusack not being present in the sequel, but more he was smart to stay away from it even if the truth is he wasn’t asked back at all. The funnier route to go would have been to publicly acknowledge how difficult the actor was to work with by having his friends in the film say how they never really liked him anyway and that he quit hanging out with them after they got back to the present and leave it at that. Instead, the script from Josh Heald, who also wrote the original and who has only penned one other film outside the hot tub franchise called Mardi Gras: Spring Break is doing nothing here but walking in circles and hoping the chemistry between the characters will be enough to elicit laughs from the audience. Instead, the friendships seem stale, the tone is beyond unenthusiastic and worst of all the movie just sits there with second rate components and characters who have no idea what they’re doing. This should be a sequel where, much like its predecessor, it exists simply to have a little fun or as an excuse to let off a little steam and laugh at something meaningless, but rather than simply go for emphasizing the camaraderie between the cast and letting these guys pre-defined senses of humor spill out over the presented outlandish scenarios both Heald and director Steve Pink bog them down in semantics of the plot and scenarios so forced we can't hardly buy into any of it being remotely funny despite the one thing anyone going into this should know is that it's all completely ridiculous. Ridiculous can be funny, but forcing laughs never is and that is Hot Tub Time Machine 2's greatest offense.