Christopher Nolan's films - Memento, the Dark Knight trilogy, Interstellar - have often been charged with being 100% exposition. Characters both supporting and main, their singular function is to drive the plot forward. While I disagree with the sentiment, I get it - his films can often feel weighed down by the mechanics of getting from A to B; though arguably with such style, flair, tension and excitement that such a flaw is by the by. Which brings us to The Crimes of Grindelwald, where style, flair, tension and excitement appear to have been entirely forgotten. But hey, if it's exposition you're here for, boy are you in for a treat!
Let's back up a minute though. 2016's Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them set out a fairly middling stall that - despite being born in the shadow of Potter - did a decent job of introducing new characters into an already character-rife universe. It was its own thing with some decent action beats, on the whole fairly inoffensive fare, even though you knew a whole slew of sequels would be waiting in the wings for better or worse. You'd like to think J.K. Rowling, being on sole screenwriting duties for this franchise, would have sat down and made sure everything hung together well (because, you know, she's an acclaimed best-selling author - surely half-decent at the storytelling game by now).
Well, you'd be wrong. Want to bring a character back (Jacob Kowalski) who had his memory erased in the last film? Turns out he only had the 'bad' memories erased, so now he remembers everything again! To say that particular convenience borders on the dreaded "it was all a dream" trope is an understatement. Want to have the nicest character in the entire film (Queenie Goldstein) toddle off with the baddie? No need for motivation! Just have her decide to do it right near the end, because sequels and all that. These are just two standout ball-drops in a film chock-full of them.
I really quite like the Potter films - they're stretched thin in places, but on the whole you give a shit about those crazy wizards and witches. Pretty much all of them, actually. But Credence Barebone (Ezra Miller)? In the first Beasts film, sure - depressed loner revealed to be the sympathetic bad guy all along. Interesting chap; would like to know more. Now? Couldn't give a fuck mate. He's got about half a dozen names and appears to be related to Dumbledore (though I'm still not entirely sure). But by the time that's revealed, I'd given up caring. I'm actually struggling to remember his journey in the film; I'm struggling to remember anyone's journey if I'm honest. It's about 60% plot, 38% magical bullshit (in a way that never ever feels fun or exciting - it just 'happens', all the sodding time, undermining any sense of jeopardy anyone could possibly ever be in), and 2% action.
Now I wouldn't ever want to label this an 'action' film. It's not. But for a film that cost $200 million, I don't think it's unfair to expect a few moments that make you go "ah, so that's where the money went". If anyone can point out those moments to me, please, be my guest. If anything even approaching exciting is about to happen, it is so undersold - CGI-laden, poorly shot and devoid of palpable tension - that I actually made several quizzical "WTF?" faces while watching it. I was tempted to turn round to the folks next to me and ask them if they were enjoying it, but I didn't want to come off as completely weird (I was there on my own - whispering to a stranger was way off the menu in a packed cinema). By the time the film's 'climax' is happening (it's hardly a climax, let's just call it the bit towards the end), I was genuinely baffled as to what anyone could be getting out of it - and that includes die-hard Potter fans.
I think a slightly left-field comparison would be Alan Moore's The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: Black Dossier. Sort of a spin-off-but-not from the main trilogy of LxG graphic novels, which essentially requires Wikipedia open at all times when reading. The sheer onslaught of references to pop culture characters and mythological creatures is insane; imagine a writer bellowing "I'm cleverer than you" in your face for 200 pages. One thing you can't level at it mind, is the fact it's well-researched. Moore knows his onions, and he wants to make damn sure you know his onions too. Rowling however... it's like she vaguely knew what she was doing on the first film, but this time is making the whole thing up on the spot. If subsequent films are an improvement on this effort (and I would be shocked if they weren't), The Crimes of Grindelwald will absolutely go down as the one film in this saga prefaced with "well, you have to watch it to understand what happens in the other films". Like an instruction manual you don't want to read, but are forced to plough through in order to get the VideoPlus+ working.
To wrap things up, you may notice an absence of plot description. That's because, there really isn't any. Despite the film being almost entirely filled with plot, of a sort. Grindelwald is bad (we knew that), Credence is sort of bad (we knew that), and Newt Scamander & Co. are good (we knew that). If anyone was making notes, maybe they'll be useful for the next film. But as it stands I don't really care, and I'd be surprised if half the audience did either.
Mark Kermode once said "If blockbusters make money no matter how bad they are, then why not make a good one for a change?". I found this quite a sneery comment at the time, as if all blockbusters are inherently trash. But films like The Crimes of Grindelwald are exactly what he's talking about. An audience needs a reason to care about what's happening on screen, and by that I mean more than a few shots of Hogwarts (if anything, they only serve to remind everyone just what fun the Potter films were compared to this turgid effluence). The critically-lauded Mission: Impossible - Fallout - another of this year's $200 million tentpoles - shows that you don't need to have seen the other films in the franchise or be given a ton of detail for future sequels (which I'm certain there will be) in order to be gripped and involved. Just put on a great show, and ideally make sure the dots join up. I would say it's not hard. But The Crimes of Grindelwald proves that it really, really is.
