The second installment of the Fantastic Beasts franchise brought back the main characters from the first film, but not together as we would like, except for Newt and Jacob who were joined at the hip like they were in the first movie.
I will not reveal how Jacob comes into the movie, in the last movie we last see him at his bakery doing well with the business and then Queenie visits his shop.
The introduction of the new characters and the development of the story will make you think of present time with the Harry Potter series. Some will make sense and some will be a little confusing. The timeline is a little off with one of the professor at Hogwarts and the class that Dumbledore is teaching is a bit confusing. In the cinematic universe it may make sense, but if you remember what is in the books it may be confusing, and hopefully somewhere it would be explained.
In this installment you get to see the relationship between Dumbledore and Grindelwald. Also it is revealed the ties between Newt and Albus. You will find out what happened with Katherine after the events at New York. You will finally meet the Lestrange that Newt had a picture of.
The title of the movie is the Crimes of Grindelwald, the movie left me with the question of what are the crimes? He broke out of prison, but is that the basis of this story? Maybe in the next installment it would expand on his backstory a bit.
The cliffhanger is a bit confusing, if you have read the books and see the Harry Potter movies it does not make any sense. It left me with “Whaaat??”
I do love the franchise, but I am teetering between like and ehh with this movie. Watch it for the great CGI, but for me it left too many open question on how does that fit in?