Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald is the sequel to Fantastic Beasts And Where To Find Them. These movies are spin offs of the Harry Potter series, set 55 years before Harry Potter was born. The movies show the buildup to the first Harry Potter movie Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. It is a well written movie with great qualities, such as the music and actors, bringing a new life of magic that we have not seen so far.

The first movie followed a young Newt, author of Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (a fictitious book that made an appearance in the Harry Potter series), chasing his creatures throughout the movie. The sequel wastes no time jumping in where the first movie left off. It began with Grindelwald, the antagonist. The scene showed him escaping prison as he was transferred from the U.S. to England. The high intensity of the scene, created by the exciting music, left us wondering what Grindelwald would do next. This was a great way to start the sequel, hinting that the rest of the movie would be as intriguing as the first few minutes.

However, the story line is too hard to follow. So many new characters are introduced and there are also storylines mixing which makes it hard to figure out which is which. Essentially, Grindelwald is trying to take over all muggles, or No-Mags, as its known in America. Creedence, a returning character from the first movie, is trying to find out his real parents and where he came from, while Grindelwald is trying to use him as a weapon for his war. Newt is seen looking for Creedence as well, trying to save him from harm. However, Newt is originally looking for his love interest, Tina, as well. Jacob, a muggle and friend to Newt is looking for his love interest too, which happens to be Tina’s sister Queenie. As you can see, there are many plots and twists to this story, and that’s only scratching the surface. The movie continues to switch between London and Paris, following multiple characters with bits and pieces of information needed to stitch the story together. Most of the time you cannot tell where they are in the movie because their cities look the same.

Although the storyline is hard to follow, there is a lot of things to like about this movie. The Fantastic Beasts still had the fun and bubbly creatures that Newt cared after. Personally, my favorite is the Bowtruckle, a small green leaf-like creature that is always by Newt’s side. The acting in the movie was also very well done, as well as the scenes and attention to detail. Johnny Depp, staring as Grindelwald made a very convincing performance, making you feel as though you were there in the movie with them through the way he acts and dives into his character. Eddie Redmayne, playing the character of Newt Scamander, brought in a softer aspect. These actors made the movie better than it already was, truly latching onto their characters, which transported you into the land of wizardry once again. Although the movie isn’t all about Hogwarts, the school did make an appearance in the film. Dumbledore also appears as a much younger man, and talks to Newt about the rising problem that Grindelwald is creating.

Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald, is a lot of information to follow, yet it is still a great movie. For any Harry Potter and magic fan, this series is a must see, and I recommend not stopping after the first one. Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald is a refreshing storyline to the old franchise of Harry Potter.