Review of Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald (2018) by Julian E — 02 Dec 2018

A confused menagerie of narrative threads, origin stories, political allegory, fan service, special effects, and triviality, without the sense of wonder that continue to draw audiences to this worldâ"magic here is not something sublime and exotic, but something dangerous and terrible, a threat rather than an escape.

The film feels like it's being crushed under the weight of its massive franchise, with wink to the audience so in your face you're left blinkingâ"I laughed out loud when the Renaissance humanist came to save the dayâ"and plot lines so tangled it requires a movie-within-a-movie to explain familial history, rather than skipping along on the surface of the world, as the much better original series does, and as a real focus on the titular fantastic beasts should.