This befuddling parade of Potterishness, including a nostalgic excursion to Hogwarts, is powered by a corresponding excess of plot. The narrative mechanics are frequently bewildering, and ultimately exasperating.
The film presents us with scene after scene of narrative throat-clearing, dithering meetings and exchanges in which we are repeatedly given information on the importance of stopping Grindelwald, and warned of the ghastly evil of his intentions.
The film's principal drawback is its narrative: largely nonsensical and bloated with new characters, subplots, and postscripts to the source material about which the viewer is given little reason to care.
Rowling has surrendered to her maximalist tendencies and so cluttered up the story that you spend far too much time trying to untangle who did what to whom and why.