Pre-Screening Sips
- We’ve arrived at the final entry in the Watching the Wizards saga – thank you to all seve-ish muggles who have been diligently keeping up with the episodes!
- We’ve also now arrived at the only Wizarding World movie that I’ve never seen; I’ve heard many things, though, and none of them are, how the kids say, “good”
Post-Screening Snippets
- The Grindelwald breakout sequence that opens the film is breathtaking, and then Johnny Depp calls an iguana “Antonio”
- So, Grindelwald is basically just Diet Voldemort – Everyone worried about his return? Check. Evil group of groupies? Check. Likes to kill babies? Check. Never seen the sun? Check. Weird face stuff happening? Check.
- If there’s one thing this movie gets an A+ in, it’s niffler babies!
- Yes, many of the new beasties are just as ugly as the ones introduced in part one, but the leafy seahorse dragon situation is magnificent
- The script frustratingly undoes pretty much every one of the twelve endings from the first film
- If there is one character I did not expect to be part of the prequel-verse, it’s Voldemort’s snake-girlfriend, Nagini
- So, I have a sneaking suspicion that Credence does not kill Dumbledore, since, you know, he’s in like all the other ones until he, you know, dies
- Prequel-wise, this falls victim to the most common of prequel tropes: trying way too hard to bring in as many elements as possible that connect to the origin series
- Just to confirm, holding hands with aggressive eye closing is indeed what being gay is
- I think Tina is supposed to be the secondary protagonist, but she’s somehow the forty-third most important character
- Grindelwald calls his followers by throwing sheets on buildings? Is he trying to stop their shopping?
- The Nicholas Flamel appearance is one of the most unnecessary callbacks I’ve seen in a prequel
- Why do some wizards apparate and some smoke monster? I don’t think there is an actual answer
- I think what’s really important to take-away from this movie is that the niffler is the real hero
The Final Potion
Not Harry Potter and the Series of Shoehorned Harry Potter References is not the absolute dumpster fire I thought I was in for. The movie suffers from too-much-ness at every turn: too many characters, too many plotlines, too many attempts to connect to previous films but also set up new ones. Yet, somehow, I didn’t hate it? Yet, I have nothing really positive to say? I am more confused than the plot of this movie.
GRADE: B-? C+? D?
BRECKFLIX 