Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them: The Crimes of Grindelwald, aka Fantastic Beasts 2, aka Harry Potter 10

What I liked: I am glad that we get to see grown up magic, which is in fact much better than high school kid magic. I liked the the blue flame dragons, what was possibly the earth splitting open, and maybe the gold dust CSI reconstruction. I liked the magical roomba. It looked more like a steam punk roomba than a magical roomba, but it was still fun. I liked the Chinese dragon and the freaky cats. I'm not sure why you need giant mechanical library stacks when you can just magically summon objects to you, but they did make a pretty cool maze. It was fun to see Nicholas Flamel. I think he was disproportionately older than his colleague Dumbledore and it would have been cool if he busted out more alchemy powers instead of resorting to wands like everyone else, but I have to admit for being 600 years old he was doing pretty good.  I like Newt. I like that he doesn't like hugs and that he is a different kind of hero who notices things and solves problems differently. I like his basement full of magical creatures. I am convinced that said basement breaks a whole slough of zoning laws and that most of the animal enclosures are ineffective at enclosing the animals. But having a magical zoo in your house does seem awesome.

What I didn't: I am still miffed that the UK gets a nice magical world while the USA and France get a nasty magical world. Think about it, the worst thing that happens in the UK wizarding world is an incompetent bad guy tries and fails to take over a high school. Seven Times. Let's also point out how long the title is, this is getting out of control. For a movie called "the Crimes of Grinelwald" there were very few actual crimes committed. Yes, there was some murder but not by Grindelwald, but no bank heists, no con schemes, no jail breaks, no smuggling, some illicit border crossing but not by Grindelwald. And if you are on the magical INTERPOL most wanted list, don't you think that you would have a less conspicuous way of telling people where you would be than draping an entire city in giant black curtains? And if you were a member of magical INTERPOL maybe you should be embarrassed that you couldn't find someone who drapes and entire city with fabric with his address on it? Ok this movie involves a lot of moving around. We go through secret magical doors, bop around Europe, and learn about other people who did more bopping. Given that wizards have magic and apparently need to move around a lot you would think that they would be better at it. For example when nonchalantly apparating to the top of a building, you would think that the could end up on the part of the roof they wanted to be on instead of on the opposite side so they would have to edge their way along a precarious ledge. Or if they wanted to cross the ocean they might consider just about any form of transportation-magic carpet, portkey, apparation, 7-league boots, dragon, you know anything-rather than take the Titanic. If you could walk through walls and fly, why would you ever take the stairs? Some elements of the film seemed pretty random and unnecessary. Does anyone every see a movie and think "that was good but what it really needed was more eyeball parasites?" Does a giant evil snake really need a backstory? Did the love enchantment only serve to bring back the sidekick or was it purely intended to be creepy? Who was the random veterinarian assistant? Also, if you were going to smoke unknown substances, don't you think you could find a more sanitary hookah than a centuries old skull? Finally, the big reveal at the end of the movie made even less sense than the reveal that the end of Solo. I stand by my previous statement that not everyone in the universe has to be related to the Skywalkers, like maybe there are other interesting people with cool abilities in the world.

Who should watch this? People who can't get enough Harry Potter. People who like CG monsters. People who like shouting at the TV.

Would I watch it again? Once was enough.