The movie title is highly misleading.
a) it's barely about fantastic beasts this time around. If it wasn't for the Qilin (which only appears here and there) it wouldn't even have more beasts than any regular Harry Potter movie. Even Newt's beast sidekicks (Niffler and stick guy) barely do anything. Not to mention literally everything else that is in his suitcase. In some scenes they even added some beasts in the background just to remind the people that they are watching a movie about mystical animals.
Well that has basically been a problem with the series since the 2nd movie. For whatever reason JK decided to make the series about Newt and named it after the book that Newt had already written within the universe in Harry Potter, when only the first movie in the series would have a plot that was primarily focused on Fantastic Beasts. It was pretty clear after the first movie that the main plot of the series was the Global Wizarding War leading up to the 1945 final duel between Dumbledore and Grindelwald where Dumbledore wins and gets possession of the Elder Wand we saw him with the Harry Potter books/movies. I guess she thought that Fantastic Beasts was a more magical and marketable name than giving it a name that pertained to the Global Wizarding War or Dumbledore, but it also forced her into making magical beasts a plot point in every movie, even if they feel shoehorned in at times.
I agree with you that Newt's animal sidekicks do less than in the past, but I still enjoyed the scene where the Niffler and Bowtruckle saving Newt and Theseus in the prison, especially the scene where the Bowtruckle thought the Niffler was saving him from the fall only for the Niffler to be jumping for the falling coins instead. And the Quilin, a magical beast, was the big MacGuffin of the movie, so I guess the Fantastic Beasts name is still fitting, even if the beasts themselves do feel a bit shoehorned into the Global Wizarding War plot of the movies at this point.
b) what exactly is Dumbledore's secret? That Credence is a Dumbledore? Uhm we already know that from the prequel. That Grindelwald is Dumbledore's former lover? Okay but that's not only not really that important but we already knew that they used to be best buddies.
I think the title here was referring to multiple secrets, the secrets of the Dumbledore family itself. 1. Albus' secret gay relationship with Grindelwald (which would have been at the very least greatly frowned upon by the public at the time, and very likely would have been illegal if the the Ministry of Magic's laws were anything like the muggle world's laws in 1899). 2. Aberforth's secret child, Aurelius/Creedence, who was presumably born out of wedlock (which also would have been pretty controversial in the year 1900 when he was born) 3. The combined Albus/Aberforth secret that their sister Ariana had been killed when attempting to intervene during the 3 way duel between the 2 of them and Grindelwald, which we had previously learned about in the final Harry Potter book/movie.
Credence, who is basically the main plot device in the second movie got downgraded so much in this movie that he became completely irrelevant. He's no threat at all. Then he got a change of heart out of nowhere. Dumbledore only told him that Grindelwald lied to him and the only truth is that he is a Dumbledore. Am I supposed to believe that these words (without any proof I might add) are enough to not only calm his anger but also to tip him over the edge in becoming a good guy? I guess they just want to phase out Ezra Miller as fast as possible.
A fair complaint. I suspect after the incident with Ezra choking the girl in 2020, JK was looking to write his character out of the series as quickly as possible, and thus wrapped up his storyline earlier than was originally intended. Ultimately, it turned out to be the right choice though, as now that Ezra has gotten himself into even more trouble, Creedence would had to have been recast for a 4th movie, it's better that she had the foresight to wrap up his character arc in the 3rd movie, so that we don't end up with 2 different main characters getting recast over the course of the series.
Queenie, who joined Grindelwald for no reason at all in the second movie does another sudden 180 and immediately marries Jacob. Terrible character development.
I think she immediately regretted joining with Grindelwald just to try and change the Wizarding World laws that were preventing her from marrying Jacob, a muggle. She would have very quickly realized just how evil and wrong Grindelwald was between the 2nd and 3rd movie. The scene with her revealing to Creedence that she kept things that she had mind read secret from Grindelwald was showing that she already had doubts about Grindelwald at that point in the movie. Then during Grindelwald's speech after being "elected" as the Supreme Mugwump he sold Queenie out and revealed her secret love of Jacob and called it an abomination (because he believes in keeping Wizarding Blood pure), which would have been the final straw that turned her back to the Good side.
As for the wedding at the end, I assume that the new Supreme Mugwump, the Brazilian Woman, changed the law that was preventing Queenie and Jacob from marrying in the 2nd movie. Either that or they finally had the courage to openly defy the law and get married anyway, not sure which.
Newt got downgraded a lot too. He used to be THE main character of the series but now he's barely more important than any of the other characters. He's also completely irrelevant for the ending of the movie. His assistant did more for the story than he did. Newt was only important in the opening scene where he got the Qilin. After that he did nothing of significance (saving his brother didn't matter either for the story).
As I stated about, Newt always felt a bit shoehorned in as the main character of the series, when it was clear that the primary plot was about Dumbledore and Grindelwald. That being said, he still had the most screentime of all of the characters in the movie, and his role was instrumental for the MacGuffin of the movie, the twin Quilins.
What's with the International Confederation of Wizards stuff that had no significance in any other Fantastic Beasts or Harry Potter movie/book? Now it's suddenly a big thing.
It has always been a big thing in the lore of the series, The International Confederation of Wizards is effectively the same thing as the Muggle United Nations, though seemingly with more powers than the UN holds, while the Supreme Mugwump leads the ICW. For instance Dumbledore himself was the Supreme Mugwump during the first 4 Harry Potter movies, though he was ousted from office after he claimed that Voldemort had returned in the Wake of the 4th movie, as the rest of the ICW wanted to hide Voldemort's return.
What's with the part where the "Supreme Mugwump" Vogel said that it's well known that a Qilin can't be influenced by magic yet Grindelwald can just create a zombie Qilin that does what he wants and other than that acts just like a regular Qilin...
Vogel was lying all along, he was working with Grindelwald.
