Starring: Eddie Redmayne, Katherine Waterston, Dan Fogler, Alison Sudol, Ezra Miller, Zoe Kravitz, Jude Law, Johnny Depp Director: David Yates WHEN we left off in 2016’s “Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them,” a “Harry Potter” prequel from J.K. Rowling herself, Hogwarts magizoologist Newt Scamander (Eddie Redmayne) — the dude who keeps a menagerie of fantastic beasts in his enchanted suitcase — helped capture the dark wizard Gellert Grindelwald (Johnny Depp) who’d been running amok in New York. But the bad guy doesn’t stay imprisoned for long. For this sequel, set in 1927, the evil shape-shifter is up to his old tricks trying to ensure the dominance of pure-blooded wizards over humans with racist rallies (Trump-allusions are strictly intentional). A mega-creepy Depp, blonded up and loving it, is Aryan brotherhood personified. What to do with this Nazi-like threat? Through the fog on a bridge in London, local boy Newt gets a surprise visit from a younger Albus Dumbledore — a canny, charismatic Jude Law as the Hogwarts professor — who gives our hero a mission impossible, if he decides to accept it: go to Paris and end the Grindelwald menace. In the second of her planned five-part, “Fantastic Beasts” franchise, Rowling is still heavily laying on the exposition. Unlike the first film, which cleverly used Newt’s alien creatures as an attack on Trump’s anti-immigration policies, the sequel concentrates on building up Grindelwald as a budding Voldemort and Newt as his unlikely nemesis. Redmayne, acting with a bouncy mop of hair and a charming squint, still seems eons away from becoming the conquering hero. And what about that mountain of unfinished business he has at home in London? His brother, Theseus (Calum Turner), is now engaged to Leta Lestrange (Zoe Kravitz), Newt’s dream girl back at Hogwarts. So there’s that, plus Newt getting together his team, which includes magic investigator crush Tina Goldstein (Katherine Waterston) and her flapper sister Queenie (Alison Sudol), a telepath beloved by Newt’s Muggle friend Jacob Kowalski (Dan Fogler). Also needing finding is Credence Barebone (a moody, mesmerizing Ezra Miller) a half-blood who’s drawn to the dark side by a parasite inside him called an Obscurus. If that’s not obscurus enough for you, there’s also Credence’s companion Nagini (Claudia Kim), a circus freak who can turn into a snake. You’ll need a paddle to negotiate the tidal wave of characters and plot developments. But the scope of Rowling’s imaginative reach cannot be denied. And as the film inches closer to Potter territory, the pulse quickens. High marks to the returning David Yates, who directed the first “Fantastic Beasts” and the final four films in the “Harry Potter” series, for trying hard to bring a cinematic force to the occasionally meandering storytelling. The visual effects improve on the first film, especially during Grindelwald’s jailbreak with the help of a flying horse called Thestrals. It’s too bad that the cutie-pie beasts of Bowtruckles and Nifflers are more fair to middlin’ than fantastic. At 134 minutes, Grindelwald can feel like an overload of homework on which we’ll we tested later. Fine for Pottermores, but a trial for us Muggles. Rowling drops intriguing hints that suggest livelier Beasts chapters to come. “We were closer than brothers,” says Dumbledore of his relationship with the villain, a teasing allusion to the prof’s homosexuality. And the themes of racism and dictatorship in this period between two World Wars resonate disturbingly for today. The twists get twistier as the film hurtles toward an exciting climax at Paris’ Pere Lachaise Cemetery. But the getting there, which should be half the fun, turns out to be a bit of a slog. The movie is now being screened in Shenzhen. (SD-Agencies) | 