THE first Fantastic Beasts film had some heavy lifting to do in needing to establish a magical world that was both directly tied into what we know comes to pass while also making itself distinct enough so that it didn’t just feel like more of the same, or that it was tying things just for the sake of it. For my money, while far from perfect, it did a solid job of that significant task.

The continuing chapter of this newly established period saga has much spectacle and just enough heart to enjoy – but finds itself too often struggling for breath under a mass of over-complicated plotting and lackadaisical exposition dumping.

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The previous film saw the increasingly megalomaniacal and powerful dark wizard Gellert Grindelwald (Johnny Depp) captured by MACUSA (Magical Congress of the United States of America) and was seemingly bound to captivity indefinitely.

But, before you can say “Wingardium Leviosa”, he manages to escape. With the help of loyal followers, he plans to rally the pure-blood wizards he sees as superior in order to take over the wizarding world and even beyond. This includes tracking down conflicted young wizard Credence (Ezra Miller) who exhibits the kind of dark power and possible historical connections Grindelwald needs.

After he is approached but realises he can’t move against Grindelwald himself (for convoluted reasons held back until later), the legendary Albus Dumbledore (Jude Law) tasks the loveably meek “magizoologist” and former student Newt Scamander (Eddie Redmayne) with helping to stop the growing threat.

Those may be the broad strokes but, as the film lulls you into a familiar atmosphere of witchcraft and wizardry, it leaves you out in the wind trying to work out what exactly the film is about and why it truly matters beyond the spectacle.

The National:

There’s lots going on to catch your eye, with every penny of its humongous budget up there on-screen, but there’s often an unsatisfying lack of narrative cohesion and a frustrating obsession with making everything connected to what we know from Harry Potter. The focus this time is less on the enchanting Fantastic Beasts and more on the grander scale threat, going some way to justify the prequel franchise’s perpetually gloomy visual aesthetic.

While he’s not as much of a menacing omnipresence as He Who Shall Not Be Named, Depp (a problematic bit of casting after the domestic abuse scandal that rocked the news not too long ago) is a genuinely sinister presence as the white-haired villain of the piece whose literal rally-holding for likeminded, dominion-seeking wizards can’t help but bring to mind a certain president.

Large portions of the film feel like a self-referential wink to mega fans of JK Rowling’s magical universe. Rowling is on scriptwriting duties once again but where last time those self-aware tendencies felt spread pretty evenly, here they come off as slavish obsession with making every little thing tie in.

Threading connective tissue is fine but it’s a problem when it starts to bog everything else down and its only lifeboat is reverting back to its factory setting of clunky exposition.

It’s frustrating, not least because it’s enjoyable when it whisks us off to a spectacular new set-piece or concentrates on the interplay between its established amiable characters; Newt’s magical love interest Tina (Katherine Waterston), her wide-eyed sister Queenie (Alison Sudol) and affable muggle, or “no-maj”, Jacob (Dan Fogler).

Even as the trick is delivered in bumbling fashion, it conjures enough wistful enchantment in the little moments or wow-factor visual spectacle in ostentatious set-pieces to get by. But it doesn’t half tie itself up in knots getting there.