Hello my Movievaures ! Are you ready to enter the magical world of Hogwarts, the Ministery of Magic and meet again with Dumbledore? Because I’m totally ready to speak about one of the most anticipated movies of the year ! I think you know what I’m talking about and if not, who are you weird person?

Of course, today I’m going to write about Fantastic Beasts: the crimes of Grindelwald. As you already know with my article on the Harry Potter studios, I’m a huge fan of JK Rowling’s universe. I was thrilled to hear that Fantastic Beast 2 was going to be released this year, and much more excited when I watched the first trailer and saw so many references of the Harry Potter saga, that we all loved as kids. The first film was much more centered on Norbert Dragonneau’s character and how the American wizard world worked. Some names as Lestrange, or references to Hogwarts were made, but never pushing it too much.

In this second movie a lot of stories of the past (or more specifically of the future, heard by Harry and his friends) are partly revealed; not always in the most subtle way but enough to trigger our curiosity and want to hear more about it. But enought chatter, let’s get into it!

However, before that, I just wanted to say that there will be some small spoilers. I will not talk about huge revelations of the movie, but only about things that are partly said in the trailers. Nevertheless, if you want to totally discover this second movie without any hints of what could happen, come and read this article afterwards.

Now, we can go on!

The movie begings with Grindelwald in the american prison as we left it at the end of Fantastic Beast 1. As you all know from the first movie, Grindelwald is a manipulative, dark sorcerer who wants to dominate the wizard world and doesn’t really appreciate the peace between wizards and Muggles (or non mages). You can easily expect from him to be able to outmatch some aurores, and your expectations are correct ! While transporting him to London to make him pay for his mistakes in Europe, Grindelwald managed an impressive escape, that visually is just magic for our eyes.

From here, the whole story begins as Newt Scamander is not the center of the movie anymore, but Grindelwald and the entire search that will take place all along film. Of course, we find again all the characters that we enjoyed so much in the first film, with Newt as one of the main characters. But he will find himself quickly mixed up with events that exceed him, with love intrigues, dark stories of the past, political issues; all still surrounded by the most fantastic animals that the earth has known.

As I told you, I will not reveal the whole plot of the movie, however what I can tell you is that Dumbledore and his past is one of the most important elements of this new movie and how it relates to the Grindelwald’s story. Nevertheless, I will stop here before saying anything else. What I will say is that this movie must be treated as an intermediate one. To be honest, I went to see this second film without taking a look at anything on the internet (no spoilers, not even any article on it) which made me a little bit disappointed when the end arrived… of course there will be a third movie which will fill the holes from this second one, but the end was to abrupt to feel satisfying. The wait will be unbearable.

I wil sincerely say that this is the only negative thing of this movie. Everything else, is just amazing: from the storyline, to the CGI, incredible scenes, the acting… Eddie Redmayne is such a good fit for Newt. He is strengh , but at the same time his tenderness (specially with animals) is just so well interprated by Eddie, that is so difficult not to believe they are the same person. Johnny Depp is very convincing as Grindelwald: completely insane but so calm when saying horrible things. Charismatic, but hideous. And Jude Law as Dumbledore (yeah I know you are all waiting for that), well to be completely honest : I LOVED IT. I was totally convinced by his interpretation of young Dumbledore: funny, provocative, confident, secretive…

And magical scenes? Well, we seriously need to be thankfull that special effects are getting better and better every day as is just pure magic for our eyes (did you see what I did there). As in the first movie, the fantastic animals are incredible realistic as you could totally believe they could exist. And the wands’ fight… taken to the next level. Seriously, is spectacular. And just for this reason I would totally advice to go and see this movie on the big screen as you will be amazed by the visual experience.

In short: GO AND SEE THIS MOVIE. You will like it for sure. However, don’t forget is a transition between two stories and so you will not have every answer to all your questions. Nevertheless, this will make the next movie much more exciting and I’m pretty sure we will have a lot surprises (specially from Dumbledore’s side) !

This is the end of quite a long article on Fantastic Beast 2. I hope you all enjoyed it. Feel free to let me know what you thought about the movie ! See you soon for a new review on The Movievaures !