Good vs evil, love and loss, characters old and new, mystery, discovering who you are. What more could you ask from a great film mixed with lots of magic and mystical creatures.
This film was full of action and mystery from start to finish. There is so much going on in this film that you can't say you got bored whilst watching it. I would say that this film was better than the first one; you meet all the old characters from the first film again and meet new characters which are younger versions of characters from the Harry Potter films.
We get to meet Albus Dumbledore (played by Jude Law) and Nicolas Flamel who we hear about in Harry Potter and the Philosophers Stone. Also, we meet a young Professor McGonagall, however this has caused arguments because the movie is set in 1927 and shows McGonagall teaching at Hogwarts yet in the Harry Potter books it says she wasn’t born until 1935. with that being said, it is still very enjoyable and exciting to watch the younger professors at Hogwarts. We learn more about Albus Dumbledore and his past and his connection to Grindelwald; they were blood brothers and made a vow not to fight each other, this is a very important detail to this story.
Along with finding out about Dumbledore's past, we learn about Nagini (Voldemort’s snake); we discover the terrible curse Nagini has and the reason we only see her as a snake in the Harry Potter films. We didn’t get to see much of her in this film, but we might see more of her in the next three films in this franchise. Johnny Depp plays Gellert Grindelwald again which caused controversy due to allegations made towards him; however, in the film Depp portrays Grindelwald in a very powerful way as he is causing trouble and leading people against the way the world is run and seems to get what he wants. The opening scene with Grindelwald is intense, and everything is thrown at you to get you in the mood for a film of magic and magical creatures while we watch Grindelwald escape prison.
There are multiple stories going on in this film; the main one is Credence Barebone trying to discover who he is and where he belongs. Credence is from the first Fantastic Beasts film and in this film, he is still trying to find out where he belongs; annoyingly it's only at the end of the film we finally discover who Credence really is. This being said we can't know for certain if this is true, we will have to wait until the next film to find out if Grindelwald told Credence the truth about who he is. Even though it is clear he isn’t on the good side we can’t help but have sympathy for him as he just wants to know who he is! We also have the stories between Newt and his brother (Theseus) who don’t seem to agree throughout this film. We have the story of Leta Lestrange as her actions in the past have affected the outcome that is being played out in the film. Also, we watch the original four friends from the first film (Newt, Tina, Queenie and Jacob) and see how they have changed due to events that have happened since the first film. In a surprise twist which I didn’t see coming, one of the original four hero’s changes sides and joins Grindelwald.
Crimes of Grindelwald makes us go on a journey of emotions, most of the time there is action but there are moments of relief with very sweet emotional moments that we get to watch relationships between characters develop like Newt and Tina and we get to watch moments with Newt and his 'beasts' which makes us remember he loves creatures and knows how to tame them. Newt is an interesting to character to watch as he is awkward yet sweet, he doesn’t want power, but it seems he just wants to help and be able to document his animals and keep them safe.
In the end this film was amazing to watch, however so much is left unanswered at the end, but it makes us want to see the next film as we want to find out more and know what is going to happen next and what might happen to our beloved characters.
