I loved Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, the first film in this Harry Potter spin-off series, but found its 2018 follow-up, The Crimes of Grindelwald, “devoid of magic”, said Brian Viner in the Daily Mail. Now a third film (of the five planned) is here, and though it’s “overlong”, it marks a “return to form” for the franchise.
This is quietly radical stuff, said Kevin Maher in The Times: a studio blockbuster that “revolves around the emotional lives of two lovelorn gay men” (albeit without “hot snogs”). It hits all the right notes: there are lots of action set pieces, chases and some “thrilling wand-offs”; performances from the supporting cast are “tip-top”.
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I’m afraid I found it “less than wizard”, said Robbie Collin in The Daily Telegraph. It’s completely incoherent. Many sequences feel like “free-floating trailer fodder: surplus to plot requirements, but too expensive to cut”. There are some bits of Potter nostalgia shoved in to give the “bamboozled viewer something to cling to”. Such moments do provide some brief “jolts of delight” – but overall, “for these particular beasts, the glue factory beckons”.
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