Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald Review

I wouldn't call myself a huge Harry Potter fan but I do the like all the movies. Including the spin-off Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find T

hem. While the story wasn't that good it did have some enjoyable characters, cool visuals, and gave us what we wanted, fantastic beasts. While I didn't like it as much as the other Harry Potter movies but it was still a fun watch. So I kind of expected the same from the sequel, but I think I got less and more than I expected some how.

The Movie follows Newt Scamander again as he is sent by Dumbledore to help defeat Grindelwald after he escapes prison. After Meeting up with his friends, he goes to France to find a the powerful boy from the first movie before Grindelwald. I then becomes a race to find the boy while also finding out the truth about him. Even though it is starting of from the last movie it feels less like a sequel to it and more of a prequel to the Harry Potter movies.

While the first on was a prequel as well it was still its own movie and just and just kept to a simple story. This one, however, tries to cram a bunch of stuff in and becomes needlessly complicated. It introduces all these new characters and gives them story lines while also following the story lines of the main characters. Half the time it seems more focused on the other characters than the main characters. You could pretty much run the movie with out them. Also, with all the different story lines going on it gets kind of hard to follow. I had to see it a second time to fully get it. Also, most of the movie is spent on building up to a twist that doesn't really go anywhere. It tries to do a double twist where it reveals that the what you thought it was building up to turns out too be wrong. But it doesn't really matter in the end anyway so it's almost pointless.

I think instead of this movie being a Fantastic Beasts sequel it should have been a separate Harry Potter prequel, because that's pretty much what it feels like. It focused on Grindelwald and Dumbledore, or maybe even a different character connected to them. Newt was okay in the first one but he doesn't really add much to this story, aside from showing or describing new fantastic creatures. Even the other returning characters seem like they are there just to be there. That's the problem with these prequel series because they focus more on setting up the original than just focussing on it's own story. That's pretty much what this movie feels like.

While the movie is overly complicated and a bit of a mess it still gives what we come to expect from these kinds of movies. There is still a lot of action, cool visuals, magic, fantastic beasts, and still has an overall fun feel. Also, the characters are still enjoyable and Johnny Depp is okay as Grindelwald. Even Dan Fogler's character still gets a few laughs. If you like the fist movie or are just a real Harry Potter fan then I say go check it out. But if not then you can skip it.

I give it a 3/5.