Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them

Nice surprise. The collaboration between David Yates and J.K. Rowling turned out great again. The film has only details in common with Harry Potter (the opening soundtrack, the orcs, the newspaper with the video, the names of the spells and the magical effect after the clash of wands), but in any case the film has a similar atmosphere of mini references as The Hobbit films. Eddie Redmayne is really a class act, at first I found his speech strange, yet he shows that he has his acting qualities, the two cute little sisters and the hilarious Dan Fogler were also great. I liked the whole concept of catching monsters in a trunk throughout New York, I wonder if there will be a different city in the next installment. The creatures are filmed brilliantly and are something to watch. Colin Farrell as the bad guy is also decent. Story 8/10, Atmosphere 9/10, Gore 0/10, Visuals 9/10, Action 8/10, Suspense 7/10, Humor 6/10. Entertainment 8/10, Scares 0/10. I'm glad to see the start of a decent series again, all the good ones are over. 85%. (2016-11-19)

This movie is a two-hour shapeless glob of spittle, that someone spat out and left lying on the ground, just because Rowling wrote it, and Potter aficionados have to lap up anything connected to that world. If it was not a cult brand or, god-forbid, a completely independent work, it would most certainly have received a similar beating that The Last Airbender got. However, as symbolic as Potter is for a whole generation, they could afford to play on nostalgia, and, without hesitation, indulge the audience with a ton of kitsch, because the audience would surely forgive the movie for its many shortcomings. And then, if that is not enough for you, the pacing and atmosphere are completely dead, and the characters are indistinguishable. The scenes themselves are meaningless, put there just to show off the visual effects, and then there are the fast blurry action scenes, that appear lavish on the surface, but lack any real ideas on a deeper level. However, the movie suffers most from the impotence of its story - basically, nothing happens during the first hour and a half (!). Then, only in the last half hour do we get away from the long introduction to somewhere else. Rowling should have simply stuck to writing books and not tried to write screenplays, because she obviously has no feeling for writing movie discourses at all. She could have brought a more experienced screenwriter to the team, as she had already taken the position of movie producer. Although I still like the original book and its movie series out of nostalgia, this two-hour show of tedium almost bored me to death, and I can hardly remember the last time I was so distracted from what was going on in the story, by what was on-screen visually. For the last half hour, I will give it 1 star. (2021-04-09)

For me, this film perfectly fits the term "producer's film." There’s craft certainty, but also inner nihilism. The logical nonsense (why doesn't Scamander use his wand right away in the hunt and instead lets everything go to the extremes?) hidden under Yates' confident direction will lull you into a sense that everything is fine. When you want to recapitulate the plot after the end, you can’t. (2016-11-21)

Fantastic Beasts and Why Go to See Them? Because they really are fantastic, cute, and I bet I won't be the only one who would like to have some of them at home. Another pretty good reason to see the movie is Eddie. To me, he's a supernatural character himself, so he fit in here quite incredibly. I don't want to compare him to Harry, but I have no choice because watching him just gave me that divine feeling. The butterflies in my stomach, the goosebumps, the tears of excitement... you know the drill. Rowling did not disappoint and I want to live in her head. :)) (2016-12-09)

Yes, I have a soft spot for Rowling and her storytelling, and if I had to spontaneously choose which arbitrary fictional world I would want to spend the rest of my life in, it wouldn't be Middle Earth or Pandora, but a magical community where you can summon beer from the fridge without having to get up off the Quidditch couch. Fantastic Beasts is a satisfying intro to a new series overflowing with visual ideas developed to the smallest detail and, above all, a palpable of love and fascination with its own world and its unlimited laws, which it then successfully transfers to the dazzled viewer through the endearing character of Kovalski. Unfortunately, the story is not that good. Rowling pushes together multiple storylines that flow independently from each other and are connected by rather skeletal and thin bridges in the finale, with the sorcerer Grindelwald, the biggest planned star of the whole series, being an essentially insignificant and unnecessary figure for the development of the story. The darker Potter-esque feel is there, but Yates certainly does an excellent job keeping the film, with the right timing of humour and a nice pace, at least within the confines of a charming children's tale, which is also true of the actors. We'll see what the sequel brings, to which this episode is obviously preparing very much. (2016-11-18)