Great review! I also saw this movie a few days ago and had a similar reaction. The special effects and cute critters had to carry it, though there were a couple of good acting performances also. Otherwise, it reminded me of the last Star Wars movie: large cast, no real plot, and a seemingly endless series of scenes that did not measurably contribute to the story at all. I was frequently confused.

They obviously used this one to tie up some loose ends, explain a lot of connections, and introduce or highlight some characters that will probably have importance later on. As with Star Wars, I felt like some of these people were superfluous and unneeded (there were stretches of this movie where we didn't see the main character for minutes at a time). The poor snake lady walked through 3/4 of the movie without saying anything or having any importance whatsoever; she seemed like an interesting person and I hoped they would do more with her, but she ended up being no more than window dressing.

Jude Law as Dumbledore was awesome; he lit up the screen. Johnny Depp was fine, but we didn't see the character's personality to any large extent. And Newt is a fun main character. But otherwise, I didn't really like most of the characters and wasn't emotionally invested in seeing them succeed or fail. I honestly do not like either of the sisters and do not find them compelling; the sidekick dude was really abused in this one. The character development material was really poorly written and awkward for all of them; Dumbledore seemed like the only one who was even the least bit socially functional.