What The Critics Hated About Fantastic Beasts 2

3. It's Looking Too Far Ahead

When Warner Bros announced that they were going to be making multiple Fantastic Beasts movies, it was always inevitable that fans would start breaking that down to try and work out where the key events that we already know happened in this timeline. As soon as they did that, they'd realise that the biggest moment - the face-off between Dumbledore and Grindelwald couldn't possibly happen until much farther down the line.

In that respect, the studio created their own biggest problem and looking at the critical reactions, it definitely seems like they failed to avoid it. They turned The Crimes Of Grindelwald into a precursor to the main event - that's why there's so much story, so much over-stuffed detail; it's all distraction - and robbed it of its ability to exist alone.

Seemingly aware of that issue, the studio have made sure the film looks ahead to what's going to come next: the relationship between Grindelwald and Dumbledore, the war between the two, the link to Voldemort's rise that's surely in there too... And it apparently feels like it's preoccupied with teasing a story it WILL tell, rather than the one its already telling.