The second part in the Fantastic Beasts story brings back Newt who is now in Europe to find Credence as he is allegedly the guy Grindelwald needs to give his plans a major push. I really enjoyed this movie and in some ways I liked it better than the first one. I am a big wizarding world fan and this movie enriched my love of this world that J.K Rowling has created.Eddie Redmayne reprises his role as Newt Scamander and I felt he did an even better job than the first one here as he takes some initiative to find his love, Tina Goldstein (Katherine Waterston). The movie introduces us to Dumbledore (Jude Law) and although he plays a side role in this film, Law played the part really well. I also liked Zoe Kravitz's performance as Leta Lestrange. Honestly, all of the performances and characters except perhaps one was great in the film. I have read some critics and people saying this movie is not about Newt and his beasts anymore but I didn't find the to be the case here at all. Newt and his beasts are the central characters in the film until the end. The design of the beasts is wonderful and so are some of the sets especially the one where Albus and Newt are talking in the fog at night which I found very appealing.
I will agree that the story jumps around a lot of plots throughout but that did not bother me and I was able to follow it all. The two scenes that did bother me a little were Queenie's turn to Grindelwald's side which was somewhat sudden or could have been explained better in scenes before it actually happens.The other was when French-Senegalese wizard Yusuf Kama and Leta explained their story through flashbacks one after the other which felt misplaced to me. David Yates seems to have a good grasp of this world after directing so many of these now but I am also of the opinion that having changing directors is more of an advantage with the franchise films. It is one of the reason why I enjoyed the Potter films too. I wouldn't mind if we see a look into this world through a different set of eyes next time. Yes, the Professor McGonagall timeline issue still exists but perhaps there is an explanation to that in future. If not, we have seen many movies mess with timeline before so I will ignore it. It does bother me a bit that this happened when the writer is also the creator of this world.
Overall Rating: 8/10