The Crimes of Grindelwald: A Review

If you've seen the Fantastic Beasts movies (or even just one), I can charge you with a task that you'll understand to be impossible: try not to love Newt Scamander. Try for a moment ... I'll wait here. See? Impossible! If you have not yet seen Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald (in case you didn't know, there are many), I would advise you to see it immediately if I weren't just now experiencing great depression from finishing it. Yes, as critics say, the movie really did feel like a transition, but it's a brilliant one; and although it does have its faults, so does every other movie ever filmed. Although it's much darker than its predecessor, it still contains quite a few funny parts. It has the great lines, the captivating storytelling (which resulted in me ignoring the need to use the restroom and hardly even glancing away from the screen until the end credits), and the magic of the first Fantastic Beasts, and the Harry Potter series. Eddie Redmayne, returning as our protagonist (and best friend in the realms of our imagination) Newt Scamander, Jude Law as Dumbledore (and he plays the role spot-on), Johny Depp as Grindelwald (who, as the title of the film suggests, doesn't exactly sit around twiddling his thumbs in a high-security MACUSA jail cell for the duration of the movie), and Zoe Kravitts as Leta Lestrange (who is frankly quite complicated, and I won't go into her character to avoid spoiling anything) are all, well, fantastic (for lack of a better word), in their roles, and so is literally everyone else, which is why I don't mention more actors and actresses by name. I can't say in good faith that you won't be disappointed, because I am disappointed myself, but really just because of the two-year wait ahead of us - thank goodness for Star Wars: Episode IX and an X-Men movie that may prove promising to tide me over!

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