Being a huge fan of the Harry Potter movies and books, I honestly quite enjoyed the first Fantastic Beasts movie. The different setting and new characters overall made it entertaining and I was looking forward to seeing the sequel and where the story goes. Alas, it's a mess.

The Crimes of Grindelwald continues after the first movie, which I think was a good foundation and starting off point for this franchise, but at the same time, it feels like it's the first movie again trying to set it all up yet again for future sequels, alongside acting like a sequel in some chunks. That made for too many plot threads occurring at any one time with rowling adding even more into the mix, which in turn made it hard for the movie to juggle all those threads, resulting in a story that felt needlessly convoluted and just plain messy.

It also doesn't help that some of the decisions made here, story-wise, by J.K Rowling herself, the writer, are either stupid/dumb or just baffling. There's also too much reliance on twists. I mean there are twists that have twists, with exposition dumps tied into them, making for slow and sometimes boring scenes, definitely feeling not earned. And what all of this does is either ruin or lower the entertainment value of pretty much every plot thread when you look at it overall, so the movie suffers.

Also, I liked the new characters like Newt and Tina and Jacob etc in the first movie, so seeing them getting sidelined here in stupid tropes or story decisions was annoying.

On the flip side, I pretty much enjoyed both Johnny Depp's and Jude Law's performance as Grindelwald and young Dumbledore respectively. Jude Law definitely could have used more screentime but it was still entertaining to see him in this role. And Depp as Grindelwald, his tactics and reasoning, it wasn't bad. I was intrigued and wanted to know more, and I'm glad that he feels different from Voldemort as he was different.

And sure there are parts of enjoyment to be had in the movie. Still being directed by David Yates, so the action, the visual effects (for the most part) and such usually looked good. You get to see more new locations and creatures in this world, which was cool. And there are definitely scenes or moments that were good or even great.

All in all, I was disappointed. I can go on and on about the issues in the movie but at the same time, I didn't outright hate the movie. BUT I don't get it why J.K Rowling felt the need to cram in so much in the sequel considering there are supposed to be 5 Fantastic Beasts movies. The writing was just weak, give her a partner who can clean things up writing-wise. I mean had the movie made its focus Grindelwald and his Crimes (you know, the NAME of the movie) and the characters from the first movie, while only introducing some new things, it could have been a fine sequel I think, but adding so many people and plot threads and references etc in this sequel made it a mess. An entertaining mess at times, but a mess nonetheless.

If you're a fan and haven't seen it yet, give it a go with lowered expectations and you might enjoy it. But there's also a chance you might go Super Saiyan at the movie for some of the decisions.