Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald
Warner Bros. | Release Date: November 16, 2018 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
52
METASCORE
Mixed or average reviews based on 48 Critic Reviews
Positive:
17
Mixed:
23
Negative:
8
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
60
The Observer (UK)Wendy IdeNov 29, 2018
While the action set pieces and effects are dizzyingly immersive, the storytelling is fussy and somehow uncompelling. Read full review
60
CineVueNick HiltonNov 19, 2018
A mess then, but a mess that deserves to be indulged. Read full review
60
Arizona RepublicKerry LengelNov 15, 2018
While it is a perfectly serviceable placeholder in the larger series, its contributions to the Potterverse are disappointingly minor. Read full review
60
Rolling StonePeter TraversNov 15, 2018
At 134 minutes, Grindelwald can feel like an overload of homework on which we’ll we tested later. Fine for Pottermores, but a trial for us Muggles. Read full review
60
EmpireIan FreerNov 8, 2018
An enjoyable foray into JK Rowling’s imagination, bolstered by a more appealing Eddie Redmayne, but you can’t help feel The Crimes Of Grindelwald is still treading water until future chapters. Read full review
60
The GuardianPeter BradshawNov 8, 2018
JK Rowling’s creative imagination is as fertile as ever, and newcomers Law and Johnny Depp impress, but the second film in the series is bogged down by franchise detail. Read full review
60
Time OutOlly RichardsNov 8, 2018
The second part in the ‘Harry Potter’ spin-off provides twists and glorious visuals, but has too much plot to truly soar. These beasts are overburdened. Read full review
58
IndieWireKate ErblandNov 8, 2018
As impressive as the final showdown is (it’s easily one of the most impressive setpieces in this fledgling franchise) and as shocking as the film’s closing revelations are (yes, they really are), this magic needs a spell of its own. Read full review
51
Paste MagazineMichael BurginNov 19, 2018
Like a sack of shiny baubles, there may be plenty of sparkle, but the story being pieced together from the jumble is told with all the narrative flair—and nearly equal amounts of exposition—of a Wikipedia entry. Read full review
50
Original-CinJim SlotekNov 16, 2018
Grindelwald is a movie that seems to want to recreate the Potter universe and does it in the most plodding way, crowding it with characters and plot points, many of which go nowhere. Read full review
50
The Seattle TimesMoira MacdonaldNov 16, 2018
While it’s often great fun to look at, “Crimes of Grindelwald” fails at what should be Rowling’s great strength: storytelling. Three more to go, and an infusion of magic is desperately needed. Read full review
50
ObserverOliver JonesNov 15, 2018
While the presence of both Law and Depp is a little distracting — the film could also be called "The Proxy War of the Long in the Tooth Former Hotties" — the acting is generally strong. But here the film’s best assets are also criminally underused. Read full review
50
RogerEbert.comChristy LemireNov 15, 2018
A big-budget, holiday-timed blockbuster about…racism, which may not exactly be the joyful, escapist entertainment families are looking for this time of year. Read full review
50
San Francisco ChroniclePeter HartlaubNov 14, 2018
By the time we reach the unsatisfying cliffhanger ending, there’s little to look forward to. Read full review
50
The New York TimesManohla DargisNov 8, 2018
It’s an embarrassment of riches, and it’s suffocating. Read full review
50
The A.V. ClubA.A. Dowd Nov 8, 2018
Harry Potter, for all his nice-kid incorruptibility, looks downright four-dimensional compared to Redmayne’s milquetoast Newt—an impossibly twee soul with few discernible flaws or even particularly interesting characteristics. Read full review
50
Chicago TribuneMichael PhillipsNov 8, 2018
It took J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter-adjacent franchise exactly one film for the shrugs to set in, even with all those fine actors up there amid expensive digital blue flames. Read full review
50
VarietyAndrew BarkerNov 8, 2018
Most of the surface pleasures of filmic Potterdom (the chiaroscuro tones, the overqualified character actors, the superb costuming, James Newton Howard’s warmly enveloping score) have survived intact, but real magic is in short supply. Read full review
42
ConsequenceAllison ShoemakerNov 13, 2018
Good actors can’t make up for narrative inconsistency. Beasts can’t erase the frustration of seeing characters you love behave in ways that make no sense. One can forgive retconning backstory where it doesn’t belong if it feels true to the fictional world you love. That doesn’t happen here. Read full review
40
We Got This CoveredMatt DonatoNov 16, 2018
Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald is two-plus overstuffed hours worth of too many characters fighting for screen time that no enchantment can salvage. Read full review
40
UproxxMike RyanNov 12, 2018
Most of the film involves meeting yet another new character, then being told yet another long story about his or her mysterious past. At times, The Crimes of Grindelwald feels more like some sort of Harry Potter encyclopedia or appendices than it does an actual movie. Read full review
40
Los Angeles TimesJustin ChangNov 8, 2018
The Crimes of Grindelwald is somehow both hectic and leaden, a thing of exhausting, pummeling mediocrity. It offers up dazzling feats of sorcery and realms of wonderment (early 20th-century London and Paris among them) and manages to conjure the very opposite of magic. Read full review
40
The TelegraphRobbie CollinNov 8, 2018
Telling an audience this stuff is important is one thing: making them actually feel that it is is the magical part, and Grindelwald bungles the trick. Read full review
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