Hello, yesterday I watched Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore for the first time in the UK. Overall, I found the film very enjoyable, watchable, easygoing and likeable, although I feel I liked Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald more, as that was much darker in tone. I though the storyline engaging, characters well delivered, effects and filming always impressive as ever, so overall, I would rate it 4/5 stars, or a grade "B", meaning 75/100.
However, some issues I had with the film was what I felt an overall lack of magic, and nostalgia. Sure, we saw lots of things originally from Harry Potter, such as Hogwarts, Hogsmeade, and various items, but the film I thought lacked many identified spells; I only identified Accio and the Cruciatus Curse in the film. It appears Grindelwald uses the Killing Curse in an attempt to murder Credence, although that too, was unnamed. Rosier and I also think Carrow use a green dark charm to fatally injure the mother Qilin, which resembles the Killing Curse, however, the spell had to cast twice to properly wound her and she died not instantly, as she was shown crying. Most of the spells in the film seemed generic, nonverbal spells, something which disappointed me. For example, I also saw no transfigurations or potions, although a black poison in some red wine as possibly a potion of some sort.
Another issue I had was some of the accents certain characters possessed. I thought Lally over-enunciated most of her words, which I thought made her sound somewhat silly and pompous. For some odd reason, I thought Jude Law attempted to imitate Gambon's accent, which I swear was not the case in Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald, in which he spoke with his own normal voice.
Overall, I enjoyed it, but I enjoyed the past two instalments more, and I still don't think it has the magic of Harry Potter.
What do others think about the film?