SPOILERS AHEAD: PROCEED WITH EXTREME CAUTION!

Being a massive fan of the Harry Potter franchise, I had to watch the Crimes of Grindelwald the day it was released.

It was a good movie, but it was so confusing with its messed up timelines and character relations that it seemed to breakaway from everyone’s beloved Potterverse. For instance what was Professor McGonagall doing at Hogwarts in 1927? How did Credence survive when at the end of the first movie, he clearly died?

With all the hype created around Nagini being a woman, I honestly thought the movie would dive into her past instead of bringing back Credence from the dead. However I did enjoy the appearance of Nicholas Flamel and the background on the Lestrange family. Unfortunately, like the other parts of the movie it was lacking in substance.

It is understandable that a movie can divulge only a certain amount of information in its limited time frame. This was trying to squeeze in so much information in so little time, that you leave the theater with more questions than answers. And that’s not a good feeling to have if you’ve been waiting a year for answers.

Nevertheless I’d like to see how the next movie plays out before forming any solid judgments.

Rating: 6/10.

Extracts from newspaper reviews are as follows:

The Guardian
Rating: 3/5
“While the action set pieces and effects are dizzyingly immersive, the storytelling is fussy and somehow uncompelling”.

The Hindustan Times
Rating: 2/5
“The Crimes of Grindelwald is at once dense with lore, yet strangely lean on plot. It can’t seem to make up its mind if wants to be a Fantastic Beasts sequel or a Harry Potter prequel”.

The Hollywood Reporter
Rating: Not stated
“The childlike wonder of J.K. Rowling’s series is hard to replicate when the protagonists are adults and used to the world of magic…Its characters are inert. By consequence, the plot grows inert”.