Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald wastes no time establishing that logic, internal consistency, and coherent storytelling have no place in this film. The opening sequence is Grindelwald (Johnny Depp) escaping prison in a torrent of garish, entirely too darkly rendered CGI. There was no real attempt to have it make any sense. The thin plot called for Grindelwald to escape, so he did.

Very shortly thereafter, we learn that Credence (Ezra Miller) didn’t die at the end of Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. No attempt at all to give a reason, just a bland statement that he survived. And the memory wipe at the end of the first film didn’t work on Jacob Kowalski (Dan Fogler). That’s right, it simply didn’t work. Men in Black II at least had the decency to come up with a weird but plausible (in the movie’s universe, anyway) method for Agent Kay to get his memories back after being wiped, but not Fantastic Beasts. Couldn’t be bothered, Kowalski’s memory wipe just didn’t work. Continue reading →