Run time: 142 mins

Potter fans can breathe a sigh of relief; this third instalment of the convoluted spinoff series ditches the gloom and doom of the last part and injects a little magic in the proceedings.

The struggle this time is that evil wizard Gellert Grindelwald (Mads Mikkelson, here replacing Johnny Depp, and all the better for it) attempts to rig an upcoming magical election in his favour (wizard politics, how exciting!). Dumbledore (Jude Law) tries to stop his malevolent plan with a small team of co-conspirators, including Newt Scamander (Eddie Redmayne), a muggle named Jacob Kowalski (Dan Fogler) and many others. Mikkelsen plays Grindelwald with a suave, charming charisma that convinces you of why anyone would be seduced by this handsome wizard and be suckered into fighting a war for him

How many more of these we’ll keep getting, I do not know (or care) but under all the heavy, dour, and frankly eye-rolling gesturing toward real-world facism and the threat of a world war, there’s still a breezy, and sometimes truly magical adventure to be discovered. Wands at the ready, here we go again. (Jack Whiting)