reviews cinema
078 | w w w. s c i fi n ow.co.u k
Fantastic
Beasts: The
Crimes Of
Grindelwald
Are the beasts fantastic
or mediocre?
Release Out now
Director David Yates
Cast Eddie Redmayne, Johnny Depp,
Katherine Waterson, Jude Law, Ezra Miller
Distributor Warner Bros
Certificate 12 A
Fantastic Beasts And Where To
Find Them ended with Johnny Depp’s
Gellert Grindelwald being revealed
and arrested; no prizes for guessing
that The Crimes Of Grindelwald begins with
him escaping. With Grindelwald on the loose
and amassing followers to his regime of magic
superiority, a younger Dumbledore (Jude Law)
recruits Newt Scamander (Eddie Redmayne) to
track down Obscurial Credence Barebone (Ezra
Miller) before Grindelwald can recruit him.
Sorry to
Bother You
Capitalism sucks!
Release Out now
Director Boots Riley
Cast Lakeith Stanfield, Tessa Thompson,
Jermaine Fowler
Distributor Universal
Certificate 15
American rapper Boots Riley’s
debut feature film is funny from the
outset as it satirises workplace matters,
capitalism and corporate corruption.
Set in an alternate reality in Oakland,
California a young African-American
telemarketer, Cassius Green, adopts a ‘white
voice’ to rise in the ranks at his office. As he
reaches the apex of his career he realises how
harmful his actions are to the wider society
and what an ugly place it can be when you reach
the top.
In this universe, everything is a little bit
off, with Riley’s world-building envisioning a
surreal and shockingly dark timeline. There’s
the ‘Worry Free’ facility, which houses low
Bags of marbles
stand in for the
nifflers on set.The increased stakes in this film leaves
the original quartet of Newt, Tina (Katherine
Waterson), Jacob (Dan Fogler) and Queenie
(Alison Sudol) with little to do. The film is so
stuffed with character and incident that hardly
anyone gets more than a few minutes on screen.
Redmayne is once again excellent, although the
series still hasn’t offered a compelling reason
as to why the socially awkward animal lover is
the right person to stop Grindelwald. Credence,
one of the highlights of the first film, is more of
a MacGuffin than a character this time round,
and Fogler and Sudol have a quietly powerful
storyline that suffers from a lack of screentime.
The new cast have more room to make an
impact – Jude Law makes for an excellent
Dumbledore, and with JK Rowling behind theincome workers in cramped
rooms and essentially forces
them into slave labour and the
most popular game show on
television is called ‘I Got the
Shit Kicked Out of Me!’ – which
is exactly what you think it is.
Neat cultural touchstones are
also inserted such as references
to The Last Dragon and a
beautiful nod to the late Lisa
‘Left Eye’ Lopes from TLC.
Riley crafts stylish chaos
such as telemarketers literally
crashing into living spaces as
they relentlessly intrude with
their hard sells. He heightens and exaggerates
the experience of living in a capitalist society by
shoving callous practices and hard truths in the
viewer’s face with absurd humour. He observes
precisely who holds the power when it comes
to the job market, and how difficult it can be to
preserve honour when all the odds are stacked
against you and a dazzling pay cheque is waved
in your face.
Stanfield leads a stellar cast who are all
captivating in their respective roles – whether
he’s down on his luck or truly terrified at the
dodgy dealings of rich people he absolutely nails
the comic timing. Tessa Thompson swaggersscript it’s no surprise that his characterisation
is perfectly in line with the older self. Zoë
Kravitz, too, lends a weighty, sad presence to
proceedings whenever Leta Lestrange turns up.
But, as with the first Fantastic Beasts movie,
there’s a sense of ‘so what?’. It has more to say
than its predecessor, but it’s nothing that the
Harry Potter series hasn’t already said. The
freshest and most imaginative scenes focus
on the magic beasts that Newt (rarely) comes
across, and there’s a sense that after his sixth
Wizarding World film, Yates might be running
out of ideas to make magic visually entrancing.
Abigail Chandler
elegantly in her role as a political artist whose
integrity is compromised when dealing with
the upper echelons of the art world. Steven
Yuen charms as a protestor and staunch union
supporter and Armie Hammer is superbly slimy
as a CEO.
The combination of committed performances
and inspired magical realism lends the film
a wild and frantic energy that explodes to
unexpected ends in the final throes.
Katherine McLaughlin