Review of Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald (2018) by Jamie W — 17 Nov 2018

Five things I liked:

- The film as a whole was more enjoyable as expected.

- The beasts! They're still far and away the best bit. Kelpies, Nifflers, etc. Great stuff.

- I still got a tingling feeling when Hogwarts appeared for the first time.

- You can't fault the amount of work, design and craftsmanship that goes into these films.

- It's very clearly positioned as a part 2 of 5 but works very well as that because it developed what happened in the first one and made me want to see what happens next.

Five things I wasn't so sure about:

- I'm still not sold on Johnny Depp. He's less distracting than in the first one but still.

- Certain liberties with magic - big stuff happened where you're questioning how nobody's noticed this stuff? Is the actual hidden from Muggles? Hmm.

- There's a LOT of exposition, which made me feel like this should maybe have been a book first that they could have then adapted. At times the film feels like an adaptation of a book that doesn't exist yet.

- Why does everyone wear Muggle clothes all the time? Did witches and wizards never do robes in the 20s? Especially Dumbledore.

- And McGonagall was teaching at Hogwarts in the 1910s?! Surely she's not that old.

So there we go! A balanced view, and a film not without problems, but overall a good watch.