Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald Movie Review 7 friends out of 10 Family Review The film is much darker than previous stories but most of the nastiness is implied rather than seen. I would not recommend for young children. Having watched this film through the amazing medium of 4DX/3D (see last weeks review) I felt that I should wait a couple of days to calm down and then review this movie on its merits rather than its gimmicks. While 'Fantastic Beasts and where to find them' was a good stand-alone movie, the 'Crimes of Grindlewald' carries the disappointment I experience when watching a story that serves as a bridge between the story origin and its conclusion. This applies to Star Wars, LOTR and even Twilight where the second movie answers some questions, raises more and then ends with you diving to your calendar to see when the 3rd episode is due to be released. The Fantastic Beasts franchise may be even worse than the others as I believe that 'The Crimes of Grindlewald' is only the second episode of a five-part series. With this in mind, I would not recommend that anyone watch this movie without seeing the original 'Fantastic Beasts and where to find them' as most of the characters have already been established before finding them again in this story. Newt, Tina, Jacob and Queenie all come back together in Paris after Grindelwald escapes from custody. The movie then focuses on their search for Credence with both sides looking to harness his power to support their side of the cause. We see the introduction of new characters to this series, that are familiar to the Harry Potter fans, such as a young Dumbledore (played by Jude Law) and Nagini in human form. There are a smattering of 'fantastic creatures' but they do not dominate this movie as they did in the first episode and the story is a lot darker in its content and delivery. As the screenplays are being written without corresponding novels there is not the opportunity to be ahead of the story as was available with the Harry Potter franchise. I believe that for these reasons that this series will not be as popular with younger children who loved reading the stories and developing their own interpretation before the movie arrived. Fantastic Beasts does not allow that and so our imaginations are controlled by the CGI version that appears on the screen. While the movie was colourful and entertaining in parts I also felt that in other sections it dawdled through dialogue that didn't add to the backstory nor push forward in establishing the next episode. With another two movies before we reach the sought after conclusion, I am wondering if I will look forward to the next release with excitement or resign myself to let them pass and…

The Girl in the Spider's Web - Movie Review 4 friends out of 10 Family Review Strong language, strong violence, adult themes If you are a fan of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo novels and films, especially the Swedish versions, then I think you will be very disappointed with this fourth instalment in the Millenium trilogy. Let me share some background to explain why. The Millenium trilogy was created by Swedish Writer, Stieg Larsson, who died prior to the first book being published. With Dragon Tattoo being acclaimed, the publishers then released Larsson's remaining novels '...Playing with Fire' and '...Hornets Nest'. Instead of allowing the trilogy to stand on its own, it was decided to use another writer to continue the series. While the names remain the same Lisabeth and Bloomkvist no longer have the same motivation and the story becomes a cross between Mission Impossible and the Bourne Ultimatum all be it with a female hero. The film retains Lisabeth Salander's hate for powerful men who abuse women and sees her dishing out strong justice for those who have not been protected by the law. In this story, her computer hacking skills are employed to infiltrate the US Security Systems to recover a key to all the nuclear weapons in the world. As could be expected, this makes her a target for various governments and criminal organisations and she is constantly at risk. To assist her in finding out which organisation is chasing her she contacts her journalist friend, Mikael Bloomkvist, for help and so the two are linked together again. Her fight for the truth ties her efforts to the young son of a computer program developer and an American NSA agent who was responsible for keeping the nuclear program safe. In this episode of the story, Claire Foy (The Crown) has mistakenly been cast as Lisabeth Salander as in her performance she acts like a petulant teenager rather than the brooding goth portrayed by Noomi Rapace. The original Lisabeth relied on street smarts gained from her tough upbringing and resulted in a savage independence but with a repressed desire for attention. In this story, Foy's Lisabeth is needier, less calculated and moves like a trained secret service agent. Rather than a developing drama, the movie comes across as a James Bond story with implausible escapes from death, corny dialogue and an over the top villain. Bloomkvist, who acts as an equal in the earlier stories, becomes a weak male sidekick, and for some reason is much younger than in the original movies. The movie comes across lazy in some of its plots such as having a protected safe house that doesn't have curtains, trying to keep a low profile by stealing the most expensive car you can find and have vital paper evidence survive the total destruction of a burnt out…