• Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald

    Not since The Hobbit has a studio franchise spin-off so thoroughly dropped the ball. The similarities between Peter Jackson’s 9-hour pilgrimage to the Lonely Mountain and the Fantastic Beasts trilogy, two in with The Crimes of Grindelwald, are immediate and obvious. Both series take a charming little throwaway book, J. K. Rowling’s 2001 Fantastic Beasts and Where To Find Them, the real-life rendition of Hogwarts’ zoological textbook, and mount them on the rack, stretching them out until the joints give out. It’s gruesome textual torture. Close your eyes and whisper along with me: disapparate, disapparate, disapparate. Like An Unexpected Journey, Fantastic Beasts started…