When is enough, enough? How do writers and studios know when to lay a series to rest before it starts becoming bad? The simple answer is, when it stops making money. In that way, we the audience are able to still have a say. Take the Fantastic Beast series as a big example of how this will play out with box offices sales in the next few weeks. The “Wizarding World” (aka, anything involving the Harry Potter universe) while massively popular since it’s conception, has been suffering as of late due to the unapologetically anti-trans views of its author J. K. Rowling. Many loyal fans, not wanting to monetarily support such views, have since jumped ship to other fantasy series. On top of that, the last film suffered from controversies surrounding some of its leading actors, as well as generally poor critical reception. While I would definitely argue that the latest installment, Fantastic Beasts: Secrets of Dumbledore needed to be made (Crimes of Grindelwald left a slew of unanswered questions), this could very well be the last foreseeable entry to the series, depending on how it goes. No pressure or anything.

Picking up in 1932 — nearly five years since the last film took place, we find our adorkable hero Newt Scamander (Eddie Redmayne) in China assisting the birth of a Qilin (a very rare magical creature who can read your soul and predict the future.) However, a group of baddies that we may recognize as Grindelwald’s underlings show up and kidnap the newborn beastie. In the meantime, our token muggle Jacob Kowalski (Dan Fogler) is still struggling with the heartbreak from his witch girlfriend Queenie (Alison Sudol) leaving him to join Grindelwald’s hate group. Grindelwald (Mads Mikkelson) himself has been a quite busy plotting his takeover of the wizarding world, manipulating now allegedly Dumbledore Credence Barebone, (Ezra Miller), and continuing to sulk over Albus Dumbledore (Jude Law) dumping him years ago. To counter all of this, Albus himself has been busy putting together a ragtag team of wizards to stop Grindelwald’s nefarious plans with an unconventional plan of his own.

Ok, that totally caught you up and didn’t confuse you whatsoever, right? This may be a very divisive opinion, but as you can guess from the title of this review, I definitely think this film was an improvement over the last. I just found myself much more engaged with the story this time around, whereas last time there were times that I just felt restless. Even though Secrets of Dumbledore had more than it’s fair share of “slower” parts, they felt more like they were going somewhere than those in Crimes of Grindelwald.

Much like the Harry Potter series, (and most fantasy in general) we’re asked, nay, forced to keep up with yet more characters that are newly introduced to the franchise. Unlike Harry Potter, we don’t have a series of books to give us context for all of them. At least I can say many of the new characters have been interesting. My personal favorite of these is professor Eulalie Hicks (Jessica Williams), a talented witch with a savage wit who joins Newt’s team to stop Grindelwald.

Unfortunately, as with any epic tale with loads and loads of characters, some previously important ones begin to fade in the background, or rarely get featured at all. This was especially notable with Tina Goldstein, who was indispensable in the first film as well as Newt’s hinted at love interest, who was absent from most of this film for…I’m not sure…reasons? Even Newt himself, who was previously THE main character of this series feels like he’s lost some of his purpose in this installment. Thankfully they wrote in the whole Qirin sub-plot in, giving him at least a reason to be there at all, albeit somewhat forced.

I’m sure on everyone’s curious about how Mads Mikkelsen did as Grindelwald, replacing Johnny Depp who previously played the role. This is, no doubt, another divisive opinion, but I also think this casting to be an improvement. Scandals over his personal life aside, I do think Johnny Depp is a talented actor who can take on a variety of roles. But I think the role of Grindelwald required a certain subtlety that Mikkelsen seemed to capture better. The character was definitely approached differently on his end, and I appreciated his cold, yet still emotionally pained take on the wizard would-be super villain.

Of course it’s a big budget Wizarding World film, so the visual effects were unsurprisingly great, albeit nothing we haven’t seen before. I did particularly like the design of the Qirin, but I have a weakness for cute mythical creatures as it is, and have always wanted to see an HD rendition of one of these in film. Once again, this being a period piece that takes place during the height of the “Art Deco” period, I adored the stylized set pieces and costumes. Problem is, I doubt your average Harry Potter fan would be as satisfied with period ascetics as I am.

I think because of my unique stance as an enthusiastically casual fan of the Wizarding World, I’m able to generally enjoy this film (and series as a whole) for what it is. But looking at it from a perspective of hardcore Potterheads and newcomers alike, the Fantastic Beasts films are becoming a harder sell than ever. The knowledge to appreciate much of these films lies in suplimentry material that really only the hardest Potterheads are willing to undertake. Yet childlike wonder, the very element that drew fans to begin with, continues to be notably missing with each film in the Fantastic Beasts series. Instead, we’re given sad adults in a cruel world dealing with past trauma and current injustices. And that obviously isn’t the whimsical escape most of us are looking for right now. While I would be at least satisfied with Secrets of Dumbledore being the last foreseeable Fantastic Beasts film as it solved most of the main issues brought up from the previous one, I’ll still feel a bit sad. I wouldn’t exactly call it “ending with a whimper”, but I certainly wouldn’t say it’s “ending with a bang” either.