Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes Of Grindelwald Review - 5 Ups & 7 Downs

3. It's Surprisingly, Hilariously Weird

Though Yates makes a lot of genuinely bad directorial decisions, every so often Rowling's script throws him a few demented gems which actually land on the genuine, right side of funny.

For example, an early scene in which a woman clearly pining for Newt gets soaked wet and moans in ecstasy is an hysterical feat of wildly unsubtle visual innuendo, and several times throughout the film we see Grindelwald smoking a skull-shaped bong...for some reason.

These moments may be in unfortunately short supply, but when they show up, they temporarily see Yates giddily embracing the nutty insanity of the project rather than trying way too hard to make it a Serious Blockbuster.