Crimes of Grindelwald takes us back to the wizarding world of Harry Potter, as a fan of the original series and someone who enjoyed the first Fantastic beast I can say that I had an enjoyable time watching Crimes of Grindelwald. I have certainly heard a lot of backlash towards many of the films twists and the incoherent storytelling/messy pacing. From that point of view I completely concur, as a standalone Crimes of Grindelwald hardly stands out and in many ways relies on cheap pops and expository background information, much like an encyclopedia of the wizarding world rather than a coherent narrative.

In many ways I find that this new series, the 'Fantastic Beasts' series mirrors that of the Harry Potter films in terms of the film structures. The first Fantastic beasts movie was a lot like Harry Potter and the sorcerer's stone in that it takes us into this wonderful world of magic and wizardry, we see through the eyes of Jacob much like we did through Harry in the original series. Now that we have reached the second installment, I find that it is a lot like the original series' weakest link, 'Chamber of Secrets', in that it is slow, expository and mainly serves to set the chess pieces and begin to tease a darker story. Although arguably, Chamber of Secrets does have more of a narrative than, Crimes of Grindelwald's "who is Credence's mum".

But as a fan of the series, I find myself still enjoying Crimes of Grindelwald despite it quite literally being more like a 10 fun facts of the wizarding world rather than a film. I think this just goes to show what a complex world Rowling ahs built, how intricate and interesting this world is in that it can make such a film interesting despite not being 'good' in terms of being a piece of cinema. I think Crimes of Grindelwald does set the franchise up for greatness, by filling in all the missing parts, and a very well done final act, I think it sets this new series up for a really interesting future.