The first Fantastic Beasts film was met with generally positive reception upon its release in 2016. While it didn’t please everybody (mainly hard-core Harry Potter fans) and the film was plagued with elements that felt dull and slightly pointless (why does a movie about fantastical Beasts in the Harry Potter world need to feature a political crime drama), it came and went as an overall harmless flick in the Harry Potter franchise. Its sequel, however, was anything but overlooked; being a movie that was met with mixed receptions at best by critics, and downright hated by followers of the Harry Potter universe. It’s a movie so conflicted with itself in terms of plot, tone and direction that it tries to cram the equivalent of five backstories into one film, to the point where it forgets whatever story it set up to begin with. Despite this, the film’s odd pacing and random scenes of focus surprisingly results in a product that is technically far worse than its predecessor, but one that is infinitely more entertaining. Still set during a time of strife between witches and muggles (or No-Maj as they ridiculously call them), the wizarding world is on high alert after the dark wizard Grindelwald (played by Johnny Depp) escapes imprisonment and starts to regather his followers in an attempt to continue his plan of overthrowing the muggle population. Due to the circumstances and being unable to face him himself, Albus Dumbledore (played by Jude Law) sends Newt (played again by Eddie Redmayne) to find Credence (played again by Ezra Miller), as he fears Grindelwald will try and recruit him to give him answers about his past. Reluctantly pulled into the situation, Newt, along with previous friends, Tina, Jacob, and Queenie (played again by Katherine Waterson, Dan Fogler, and Alison Sudol) decide to travel to Paris in order to look for Creedence, while avoiding the glaze of Grindelwald as well as Newt’s old friend from school, Leta Lestrange (played by Zoë Kravitz) who holds some knowledge about Creedence’s past. Pretty much destroyed upon release, the movie is easily the most ‘controversial’ out of any of the Harry Potter (even ignoring the fact that Depp is in it). But regardless of that, can its more interesting elements overshadow a worse narrative?

The fact that this film had the same cast, crew, and director from the last movie, as well as having book writer, J.K. Rowling, helm the script, means that this movie’s issues don’t come from a change made after the first film, instead this film feels like its trying to overcompensate for what the first film did badly (which is strange considering they allow David Yates to remain as director). The first film was lacking in plot; it felt like it was stretching a one-note idea into something that didn’t even replicate where it came from, resulting in a lot of pointless wizard politics that nobody cared about. Here, the movie’s narrative is so aimless and packed full of several different angles and backstories that its pretty hard to keep focus on what to pay attention to. With the screenplay written by Rowling, this is a prime example of how a book writer isn’t always going to operate as smoothly as a film writers, and there are different steps that are needed to construct the other, which results in this film being a complete mess from a story perspective. It feels like it never takes a breath to let a moment sit, or to have its characters think, it’s always moving something along and therefore, doesn’t leave much time for people to process what the story’s even about, making this convoluted narrative about swapped children, blood pacts, wizard vs muggle rights, and past family tragedies even more difficult to follow. What is bizarre about this format is that the parts of the story that feel the most secondary (the flashbacks at Hogwarts, Dumbledore’s relationship with Grindelwald, anything to do with Leta) is the section of the film that is actually worth viewing; it has interesting set-pieces, some of the developments are confused, but intriguing, and in comparison to the other film that was more standard, but blander throughout the whole thing, the fact that at least a piece of this movie is something that could be viewed again, is a step up. This however, leaves the main part of the film being generic and poorly delivered; as what is set-up in the beginning doesn’t really have a good pay-off come the film’s end. It felt like it was too focused on future plot-points as opposed to finishing off those it just established.

The past film suffered from its characters being pretty generic, but it at least kept focus on the ones in question due to the small sample of them; they weren’t very interesting, but for a basic story and for what it required, it knew what to do with them and it worked out fine enough. Here, the movie has a lot more characters, which means a lot more people for the movie to focus on, which means less time to focus on the ones from the previous film. This wouldn’t be so bad if they didn’t play a part in this film, but they do and it unfortunately feels like they shouldn’t. With how the story is laid out, the main four from the previous film feel incredibly forced into this plot, like it was meant to work with these new characters introduced, but since this story is told within this franchise, they need to be relevant somewhere, but they have no agency in the film, don’t feel changed or different by the end, and contribute nothing substantial overall. The villain is also incredibly weak for this film; even though this was Depp’s last performance before the court case kicked him out of any future films, this is a pretty weak performance to go out on. Grindelwald is every basic ‘cult leader rallying people to crush the weak’ type character, and therefore has nothing to work with. Its every standard Johnny Depp performance, which means the character won’t suffer without him playing it. With that said, some of the new characters are pretty interesting; a younger Dumbledore has potential (especially his relationship with Grindelwald), and Jude Law plays him with his own energy, but still manages to capture the correct spirit for the character, this woman tagging along with Creedence who can turn into a snake has barely any lines, but considering what happens to her in the future seems like she could be pretty interesting, and Leta is easily the best character in this movie. Zoë Kravitz plays her very well and she actually has some decent backstory (albeit a messy one), easily the best part and most interesting character in the film (despite a really lame ending).

For a movie that could explore a new angle of the wizarding world that the Harry Potter franchise set up, it hasn’t done a very good job at not only its world-building in general, but just in making interesting new locations. While the Harry Potter films stopped having cool locations around halfway through the franchise, this movie gave up within its first; with a bland looking England, transitioning to a bland looking America, and now the movie offers up a bland looking Paris. The production design for this entire franchise helmed by Stuart Craig has never been very good, as each new location has the same ugly grey stone-pavement based look to them that makes them all look the same, and everything is presented as so colorless and lacking brightness, its very unpleasant to look at especially for a magical universe. With that said, some of the creature designs are creative enough that they feel like fantastical animals that would exist within the wizarding world (as well as look a lot more interesting than they did in the first film). However, the magical creatures also feel entirely pointless to this overall film. In fact, they don’t have any relevance in any of the plot-lines being set-up for the future. It feels like it used that title just for an excuse to do a different Harry Potter spin-off franchise, which isn’t an awful idea, but the tones of ‘collecting magical creatures’ doesn’t really fit with ‘solving the political war between anti-magical people and those of pure blood statuses’.

This film is the X-Men 3 of the Harry Potter films; in terms of presentation, in terms of acting and even in terms of entertainment, it has a lot of good stuff in it that feels like an improvement from its previous. However, in terms of story and character, its easily the worse, not just in this franchise, but in the entire Harry Potter filmography. Its so cluttered and overstuffed with material that it doesn’t even fully dedicate time towards; it technically ups the stakes and drama, but because of how poorly its established or even presented, nothing is felt, and it leaves the movie feeling empty come the conclusion. It’s a very difficult movie to pin down and its hard to determine whether or not people are actually going to like it or not. For just an average moviegoer who is aware of Harry Potter, it would be fine, maybe even pretty good, but for anybody who likes the Harry Potter franchise and has more focus on what’s happening, it might not pique your interest. Check it out and decide for yourself if you’re willing to follow down the rabbit hole of another Harry Potter film series.

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