There were no new secrets about Dumbledore

I went to watch this movie, remembering some of the plot points of the first Fantastic Beasts and with complete memory loss over the second one (considering how bad it was).

The overwhelming question that I had throughout the movie was "Why are the movies still called Fantastic Beasts?"  The beasts have little to do with the story although they play some role in moving the plot forward.

Let's start off with the characters. There were many new characters in the movie, some of which were probably in the previous movie but as I said before I forgot what the second movie plot was. Half the movie, I am just looking at the screen and thinking - Who is that? That man... (Not Sirius Black - only  Potterheads who have watched Prisoner of Azkaban gazillion number of times will get this joke).

There is not enough character building for the new characters, so that if any of them do anything heroic or shocking, I am not invested in it. Was I invested when Hermione suckerpunched Draco in Prisoner of Azkaban? Hell yeah! Was I interested if Jude Law's Dumbledore appointed a spy from the Lestrange family who finally ended up doing the right thing? Not in particular. 

Jude Law is a terrific actor but David Yates and Rowling makes him play a young Dumbledore without the youthfulness of a young person. He might look young but he still carries the persona of the wise old grandfather from the Harry Potter franchise.

The biggest change was of course observing Mads Mikkelsen's interesting take on Grindelwald after Johnny Depp (who is now in the midst of a lot of controversy). If anyone was living under a rock about the Depp situation and only went to watch another movie from the Wizarding World franchise, they would sure as hell be confused as to who is Grindelwald.

Also there was a lot of German actor representation in this movie considering some part of it was supposed to portray Berlin. I was pleasantly surprised to see Oliver Masucci (the actor who played Ulrich Nielsen in the hit German Netflix show Dark) as the German Minister of Magic.

I was also interested to see a new young actress as Minerva Mcgonagall who will have to fill in the shoes of the legendary Maggie Smith.

Finally I was wondering why Credence's character was still around? He did close to nothing to move the plot forward and with all the recent Ezra Miller's physical abuse accusations, WB studios can easily dispense off his character in the franchise. Also what happened to Nagini from the previous movie? Would be interesting to know how she ended up as the pet snake of You-Know-Who.

Now coming to the plot and world building. I was fascinated to see the UN version of the Magical world and also the Ministries of Magic of different countries. Was still hoping to see more Ministry of Magic representation from African and Asian countries. Rowling also did what every Hollywood movie does to the Himalayas - reduce it to a cliche of a place of enlightenment.

The CGI is always emaculate and the action scenes in the Wizarding World have never failed to disappoint.

Also since most of the movie has a backdrop of Europe in late 1920s or early 1930s, I am interested to see whether Grindelwald's plan for mass genocide of muggles is going to coincide with the Holocaust period in World War II in the subsequent movies. As an amateur B1 level speaker of German, I had no problems in following the signs and symbols of the plot line in Berlin, but that would not be the case for other non-German speaking watchers across the world.

All in all the movie has a decent plot compared to the last movie, characters randomly introduced  where the story line needs more polishing and nostalgic moments where we get to see Hogwarts (with Slytherins still being inherent bullies?) with John Williams original theme kicking in inside the enhanced Dolby Atmos movie theatre still giving me goosebumps. 

Were there truly any new secrets of Dumbledore that avid Potterheads already do not know of? No. But I am still interested to see how the HP prequel franchise moves ahead from now on. Does it involve muggle world politics and problems and follow a historical timeline or does Rowling make it a completely different universe from the real events of the world. We will have to wait and see. For now I can say that Rowling with her new screenplay for the prequels has opened up many plot points with many loose ends which need to be cleared up and ultimately coincide with the HP timeline before she can say Mischief Managed.