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FANTASTIC BEASTS: THE CRIMES OF GRINDELWALD

   
  The first fantastic beast was truly a surprise to me,I never thought I’d enjoy it as much as I did,especially with it being a Harry Potter(I love Harry Potter) prequel. The titular character Newt Scamander truly held his own as the face of this new franchise which impressed me because of how unique he was from Harry Potter himself. He wasn't some kind of chosen one or extremely special person, he was just a good guy who saw the best in everybeing which I felt made him stand out. 
Set many years before the philosopher’s stone, the first film established a lot of cool stuff like the american wizarding world as well as fun new characters so,when they announced they would be a total of five films, I got scared. I mean,I expected a sequel but four sequels? That really felt like a stretch so before I saw this sequel,I kept thinking “do they really have enough story for five movies?” and now that I've seen this film, I feel like they might not. 

  So Fantastic Beasts:The Crimes Of Grindelwald picks up three months after where the last film ended.  Most of the characters from the last film returned,it kept things familiar and interesting but, it felt like about fourty minutes of this film was just there to stretch things out. I mean for instance, let's talk about the girl Newt obviously had a thing for in the first film;Leta LaStrange who  finally makes her debut in this film. She's shown as a smart, bold witch who never had a sense of belonging.  On paper, this sounds like ingredients for a truly fascinating character but there really isn't anything memorable or fascinating about her which was underwhelming.
 I mean, she's related to freaking Bellatrix Lastrange, One of the most(in my opinion)  iconic villains in cinema and fictional literature. So I felt really sad when I realised I wasn't even a tad bit interested whenever I saw her ancestor Leta.  Don't get me wrong the actress did a fine job, it just felt like the character would have been so much more and by the end of the film I felt like her character was utterly wasted. 
  This film introduced a bunch of new characters and decided to hardly focus on any of them for that long. I mean, this film is sub titled;The Crimes of Grindelwald and he's barely in it at all. Johnny Depp as Grindelwald wasn't in anyway bad but, it felt like he needed more scenes. I know Grindelwald isn't a new character but technically, for most of the first film he was in disguise. 

He gives this speech at the end which was meant to be badass and intimidating but his character journey through out the film felt really lackluster due to him barely being in the film and when he was onscreen,he wasn't interesting, he just felt like the wizard Hitler.  They are some scenes where Johnny Depp shows great facial gestures that give Grindelwald's character complexity but, they're always downplayed with proud and boring speeches about wizard supremacy. 
He had a really cool scene in the beginning of the film which I liked but other than that, I didn't see him as anything more than just your regular one dimensional villain which is sad because I could really see that they tried really hard to make him complex and interesting. 
 Still, this film is highly entertaining, I wasn't bored at all because of the fact that it's set in the wizarding world of Harry Potter.  Lots of Harry Potter references alone will make you feel satisfied, the musical score is still great, the whole vibe of magic  is still familiar and fun to see but, i still feel like half of this film is just there to pass time and not actually move the narrative at all. 
  The best parts of this film are in the first and last thirty minutes, everything in the middle feels like a total waste of time.  They are familiar characters here who get rather interesting backstories and there's a big twist at the end that will keep you wanting to see another movie even with the lackluster and long middle part of this film.  Even when it drags, it still manages to be an entertaining film filled with new beasts, old places and characters, new twists and beautiful music so, in my book it's still a solid film to watch and (to an extent)really enjoy. 

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