Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald Review:

The Crimes of Grindelwald is the sequel/prequel to Fantastic Beasts, a spin-off of Harry Potter. Newt Scamander, Eddie Redmayne, and the characters from the first try to find a way to stop Grindelwald, Johnny Depp, from trying to get rid of the human/muggle race. I thought the first movie was good but definitely not as good as the Harry Potter movies, except for Chamber of Secrets (I cant get into that one at all). This one isn't as horrible as critics are saying and it's nothing amazing. It's just fine. I think it's enjoyable as a Harry Potter movie but it had its issues. J.K. Rowling wrote the script for it and that was probably the worst part. For example: they tried fixing one plot hole with one sentence and it just didn't seem to fit. It wasn't exciting and kind of boring. The movie started off with a bang and then just died down a lot. By the end it picked up again but there was a long period where it was just too slow and not exciting. The title did have an issue too. 1: The Fantastic Beasts part wasn't much in there. We saw new creatures but I wanted more of that. And 2: Grindelwald was shown in it for 10 minutes, maybe a little more. So that was a bit of a disappointment. Grindelwald as a character wasn't my favorite. I didn't feel like there was much development on the character and seeing his views was a little difficult. The other character that I didn't like either was Katherine Waterston as Tina. She wasn't my favorite character to begin with but I just really didn't like her in this one. The rest of the characters were fine. I actually liked Queenie, Alison Sudol, and grew an appreciation for her. They did a dumb plot twist at the end with her character which was unnecessary but I guess they needed a plot twist of sorts. Jude Law as Dumbledore was probably the best part. He was so enjoyable and we got more backstory with him. The visual effects were great. The score by James Newton Howard was good. David Yates did well directing, like he did with the other Harry Potter movies he directed. Honestly this movie would've been just a little better had the script not been so boring and not exciting. I feel most will like this movie. Hardcore fans of the franchise will either like this or dislike it. I'm not a hardcore fan but I do like the series. This is tied in last place did my least favorite movie of the franchise with Chamber of Secrets.

My Grade: B-