Review of Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (2016) by Belous — 14 Nov 2018

You know what was good about “Harry Potter”? It had “Harry Potter” in the title and it was about Harry Potter. In “Fantastic Beasts and where to find them” there are those “beasts”, but the problem is that the movie is not about them and has a single word about where to find them.

The film begins with a battle of a group of mages and a mysterious dark sorcerer and a bunch of newspapers headlines about someone called Grindelwald. Who is it? That’s a good question. If you want to know than go watch sequel, because he is not in this one. The twist of Grindewald’s exposure is very weak, it simply leads to nothing. Throw it out of the movie and nothing will change. Oh, wait, if you do that than it wouldn’t be so interesting to see the sequel. It’s really sad when the first movie of a cycle tries to sell you the sequel.

What is a real pity is the fact that the beasts are absolutely gorgeous, but there’s too little screen time with them. The story just begins when some of them flee, later they become a secondary storyline, giving the first place to Creedence. He is a very powerful wizard, who turns into an obscurus, a dangerous magical creature, by suppressing his magical powers. And someone might say: “But here is your magical beast and a story about it!”, but it is a very cheap move. The viewer clearly understands that the story of the beasts ends with the capturing of the last escaped creature, long before the end of the movie. Who is this Creedence guy? Why should I care for him? The whole movie feels like the creators just stuffed too much and didn’t bother to make some part really good.

But no everything is bad here. Eddy Redmayne (Newt) and Ezra Miller (Creedence) are superb in portraying their characters. You could watch this movie for their performances alone. It’s difficult to say something good about other aspects of this film. The editing feels raggy and awkward, the stories are skin-deep, and the sequel baiting is frustrating. The movie had potential but it lacks of polishness almost in every aspect.