Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindlewald (2018)

This Harry Potter universe expansion pack is about an older, constipated (?) Harry Potter/Doctor Who type who surrounds himself with only the most uninteresting of friends - are we really supposed to care about the irritating Queenie and her spellbound Poirot, or keep track of who is and who isn't a fullblood wizard? - and punctuating the "you can only possibly care less about all this if you've read the books" plot are belaboured cgi sequences - a Groot climbing in and out and in and out of Eddy Redmayne's pocket, a mole collecting coins, a bird, etc.. - that I presume are included as careful nods to the Potterverse or to remind you of characters who will become important again in number three, four, five -  and they are spectacular feats of animation - but here, in this decidedly unmagical, heavyhanded snorefest, these moments merely slow down an already tedious series of magic-school carry-on and pokemon creature reveals.

★☆☆☆☆

CINECAL: ONE SENTENCE REVIEWS

Fantastic Beasts and Where To Find Them (2016)

Pokemon meets Harry Potter in this 2016 adaptation of J K Rowling's book about a Doctor Who-like 'magizoologist', who appears to be constipated, who carries creatures around in a Tardis-like suitcase - there's lots of Potterverse references to delight fans but little for anyone else to care about and just as you resign yourself to the idea the movie is simply about enjoying the spectacle of fantastic beasts running amok in New York, there comes a "big reveal" that suggests you were supposed to have paid closer attention to things afterall.

★★☆☆☆

CINECAL: ONE SENTENCE REVIEWS

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1 (2010)

It is a bit hard to review the first half of a ninth instalment of a movie series when you've only ever seen number one 15 years earlier but that said, this made zero sense to me despite my nephew's constant, slightly impatient commentary (That's a mudblood! Beeecause he's a muggle! He's the real leader of Griffindor, durbrain! He just is!) and really for about an hour and a half, Harry, Hermoine and Ron walk around in circles in a woods doing nothing much at all, only occasionally encountering mumbling characters, all incoherent lest they are completely silent as in one case, some adding to the confused boredom by suddenly changing into other characters or snakes or forms I also didn't understand the significance of.

★☆☆☆☆

CINECAL: ONE SENTENCE REVIEWS