Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald is less than a week away and reviews are starting to flood in. Sadly, reviews so far are generally mixed, and the critical consensus seems to indicate the film doesn’t live up to the first ‘Beasts’ entry.
The film currently holds a 57% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, compared to its predecessor (Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them in 2016) which has a certified “fresh” rating of 74%. Critics are praising the film’s magic and charm, but criticising the overall story and medley of characters.
Richard Roeper of the Chicago Sun-Times says, “the movie is too busy bouncing all over the place, stuffing subplot after subplot into the mix”, while Michael O’Sullivan of the Washington Post praised the story and noted the film has, “one of the biggest third-act reveals in the whole Harry Potter series.” (Editor’s note: beware spoilers if clicking the review links.)
Of course, these are the views of film critics and not necessarily the general ‘Potter’ population, many of whom are praising the film on social media. We’ll need to wait a week to see how the ‘Potter’ faithful feel about the film.