Ezra Miller

REVIEW: Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald (2018)

After Gellert Grindelwald (Johnny Depp) escapes from justice and starts to amass his followers, Albus Dumbledore (Jude Law) tasks magizoologist Newt Scamander (Eddie Redmayne) with finding the powerful but dangerous Credence (Ezra Miller) before Grindelwald does.

Amazingly, a lot happens in Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald but at the same time, the many characters and their actions do little to further the overarching plot. The main plot could take up less than an hour, everything else is loose plot threads that have the potential to come to fruition in future films but in this one they leave you confused and cold.

As well as many new characters being introduced in The Crimes of Grindelwald, Newt’s American friends return too – even though characters like Jacob (Dan Fogler) and Queenie (Alison Sudol) seemed to have a completed story arc at the end of the first film! You meet Newt’s older brother Theseus (Callum Turner) who works for the Ministry of Magic and is engaged to Newt’s childhood friend Leta (Zoë Kravitz), both are interesting but have little to do.

There’s so many scenes where characters just dump exposition and usually not in a compelling way either. There are also flashback scenes of when Newt and Leta were studying at Hogwarts together. These are sweet and the younger actors do a fine job but through previous dialogue between adult characters you got that they used to be good friends and Leta had a tough time at school. These scenes, while nice, weren’t needed and added little to the film.

The special effects are stunning, though the opening chase sequence is hard to follow, and when Newt is with his fantastic beasts, those scenes are a lot of fun and cute. However, going forward it’s hard to imagine if future films will keep featuring magical creatures (or even keep the “Fantastic Beasts” title) as these scenes while more light-hearted and show off what a truly wonderful character Newt is, do little to further the convoluted plot.

There’s some very odd and potentially insensitive choices as well throughout the film but especially when it comes to the future Grindelwald predicts. In his quest to show his followers how bad and dangerous Muggles are, he insinuates that the Second World War and all the horrors that come with it can be avoided if wizards were in charge. It is a sequence that is weird and almost unbelievable.

The Crimes of Grindelwald is just messy. None of the characters have a satisfying or complete character arc, very few of them achieve their goals, and the story as a whole is convoluted. The way some scenes are edited leads to confusion too as characters seem to suddenly appear or move from one location to another without much set up. Also, there’s so many connections or easter eggs relating to the original Harry Potter series – some of them are great whereas others seem to make little sense with what we already know. It’s as if J.K. Rowling is throwing in all these references, whether it’s a characters surname or an object, and hoping that these cool things will detract from the fact that the new story is overstuffed and chaotic.

My main takeaway from Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald is Newt is a sweetheart, I love his brother Theseus and I hope there’s more of their relationship in the next film(s). There is a lot of set up in this film, for so many characters and plot threads, and little pay off so hopefully future film(s) will be more exciting and satisfying. But that does mean Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald has little about it that’s memorable or important. 2/5.

REVIEW: Justice League (2017)

Bruce Wayne (Ben Affleck) and Diana Prince (Gal Gadot) team up to bring together a group of heroes to stand against a threat like none of them have seen before.

There are many things that are not great in Justice League, but the characters and their interactions are what makes this film a lot more fun and enjoyable that Batman v Superman.

The main problem with Justice League is it spends the first third of the film having to set up three new heroes we’ve not met before, Cyborg/Victor Stone (Ray Fisher), The Flash/Barry Allen (Ezra Miller) and Aquaman/Arthur Curry (Jason Momoa), along with a villain in Steppenwolf (Ciarán Hinds) who has a whole backstory as well. There’s a lot of exposition to get through, some of which is heavy-handed, and it slows down the pace of the film as it makes you to wait for any of the action scenes and the main plot to start proper.

When the heroes are together it’s nice to see them getting to know one another as they work together, but unless you know these characters from comics or TV shows, you don’t know enough about them to really care about them or become attached. Still, there’s some funny moments between the team of heroes as you start to see their personalities come through.

Justice League features an end-of-the-world-plot, but you don’t really feel those stakes due to this world seemingly not be populated by anyone but the heroes and people they know. Even when clashes between heroes and villains happen in a major city, there’s no one but the heroes around – it’s quite jarring and makes the threat not feel threatening.

Justice League is watchable, the characters are fun and the action (when it happens) is mostly exciting and engaging. However, the editing in fight scenes don’t always make everything clear and the plot itself has neither high stakes nor is always coherent. It’s the step in the right direction for the DCEU but it is a step down from Wonder Woman. 3/5.

REVIEW: We Need to Talk About Kevin (2011)

we-need-to-talk-about-kevin-posterEva (Tilda Swinton) struggles to love her strange son Kevin (Rock Duer, Jasper Newell and Ezra Miller depending on age) due to the increasingly vicious things he says and does as he grows up. But Kevin is just getting started and is final act will be beyond anything anyone could imagine, and Eva struggles to deal with the consequences.

We Need to Talk About Kevin jumps in time between the present where Eva is trying to deal with the consequences of her sons actions and various points in the past as Kevin grows up. As the film progresses you slowly realise what it is that Kevin has done and why the community has turned against Eva.

The film is unsettling because you know something bad is going to happen and you’re just waiting for that moment. You’re also waiting for someone to take Eva’s concerns about her son seriously. Her husband Franklin (John C. Reilly) seems to miss all the times Kevin is acting up, instead he is the fun dad who plays video games with his son and gives him the benefit of the doubt.

The cinematography is stunning and with the eerie soundtrack, adds to the tension that slowly builds throughout the film between Eva and Kevin. Swinton and Miller have weird chemistry between them and both their performances are incredible. Really it is Swinton’s film and her performance is mesmerising, while Kevin is almost like this negative presence you feel at the back of your neck.

We Need to Talk About Kevin poses the nature vs nurture debate to the extreme. Should Eva have tried to understand and love her son more? If she did, would she have been able to stop him? Or was there something not right with him from the beginning and there was nothing she could’ve done? But if that’s the case, surely it’s still Eva’s fault for she is his mother and he came from her?

We Need to Talk About Kevin is a brilliant mix of family drama, thriller and horror, it’s an unsettling film to watch but it’s also compelling and you can’t look away. 5/5.