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F beasts of needles; more crimes. This second adventure in JK Rowling's film series about the young and mysterious magician Newt Scamander, performed with enthusiasm by Eddie Redmayne, takes the inevitable turn ever darker and darker. The story is initially filled with sneaky stories, reactivating the characters of the latest film, saving them from apparent destruction or loss of memory;
The epic of Rowling's enchanted world includes references specific to the Hogwarts universe that we already know and love, younger versions of ancient characters. and therefore, in some respects, more premonitory, with allusions to a myth of origin. But as often with fantastic adventure, storm clouds arrive and history is inexorably directed towards a titanic battle of good and evil. It's just as spectacular as the wonderful opening film, with creatures made with love, witty inventions and witty vignettes. But I could not help but think that the narrative rhythm was a little embarrbaded and we get bogged down, just a little, with a lot of new details. That said: the architectural details of JK Rowling's creativity are as impressive as ever.
We now have to face the black wizard Gellert Grindelwald, played by Johnny Depp with a single Marilyn Manson-style contact lens. Like Magneto in the X-Men, he believes in the superiority of power. Grindelwald absolutely rejects the idea of peaceful coexistence with muggles and insists that the only realistic way for wizards to survive and flourish is to establish absolute dominance over these no-majors – under his own tyrannical regime. And what about his "crimes"? These, it seems, may still be in the future. The film unfolds, like the first, in the late 1920s, but in a dramatic scene of frenzied rhetoric, Grindelwald offers his followers a vision of the horrors of the next 10 or 15 years: war and destruction. All this, he says, is what he wants to avoid.
Grindelwald begins his custody, as we left it at the end of the last film, a dark lecturer character who is far from resigned to incarceration. In Paris, we find a character of paramount importance: Credence, a troubled young man played by Ezra Miller, who may well hold the key to the future of the wizard. Is it good or bad? The choice is not that simple. Tina Goldstein (Katherine Waterston) is also in Paris in the field of witch business and poor Newt is still in love with her, but she was cold on him, due to a misunderstanding on her relationship with Leta Lestrange (Zoë Kravitz), who is engaged to Newt's brother, Theseus (Callum Turner), an official official of magic who tries to rehabilitate Newt's reputation with the powers that be. Dan Fogler resumes his friendly turn as Not Pal, Newt, always alongside Queenie (Alison Sudol), Tina's sister.
But the most striking newcomer is the young Albus Dumbledore, well played by Jude Law, an enigmatic and charming figure who persuades Newt that he must travel to Paris to find Credence and face his own destiny. Albus is of course the former Newt teacher, and there is a very amusing flashback scene in which he encourages young Newt to face his boggart, the form of his worst fear. The biggest fear Newt is working in an office, his boggart is a miserable little office with a typewriter that turns into a snarling monster.
Albus is now well known for being gay, and in this film he turns out to have been as close as brothers with a certain character as a young man. In fact, closer than the brothers. The relationship was intense. There was a mixture of blood. But his homobaduality is represented only stealthily and indirectly.
This Fantastic Beasts movie is as watchable and entertaining as expected and it is an attractive Christmas event, but some of the wonders, novelties and narrative rush of the first film were lost favor of a plot focus more diffuse, distributed in a larger distribution. The foundations of a great mythical franchise, with apocalyptic battles still far from the horizon, are easier to prepare and more difficult. I would have liked to see much more of this superb performer, Katherine Waterston, but Redmayne's Newt is becoming a real character: sweet, shy, with a childlike quality that does not really change, no matter what point things get scary.
• Fantastic Beasts: Crimes of Grindelwald are released on November 16
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