Review of Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (2016) by Benskylerhill — 26 May 2018

Far from being a terrible movie, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them is nonetheless woefully unnecessary and not nearly as fun as it could have been. It does carry on the Harry Potter universe in a sufficiently charming way, but it really comes across as riding the coattails of a successful franchise while not doing enough to build its own compelling story.

What made the Harry Potter series so endearing was its characters. Each character both main and minor had their own compelling arc that was visible in each film and carried on throughout the saga. Fantastic Beasts does have very quirky characters that are incredibly fun to watch and also have enough charm and emotion to make them worth caring about. The performances are suitably strong--with the exception of a few minor characters--and the banter between them makes the film watchable.

But beyond this, the movie has some serious problems that really make the experience entirely forgettable. Though this is certainly surface level, the CGI is just bad at many parts of the movie. They're not all bad. About half of them work just fine, but there are parts in which entire rooms are constructed using computers when it's not even an action sequence and therefore completely unnecessary. Many scenes don't even look finished, and it certainly makes the beasts not-so-fantastic.

Another problem is the story. The plot weaves through a tangled mess of main quests and subplots to the point where I didn't even know what the movie was about when the credits rolled. It gets off to a very slow, boring start and doesn't get much better from there. Not only that, but many crucial details that are essential to the story feel very forced, unbelievable, and shoehorned into the script for the sole purpose of advancing--and therefore creating--a plot.

Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them is sure to entertain long-time fans of Harry Potter, but it's unlikely to have converted any new followers to the franchise and it certainly doesn't have a leg to stand on its own.

Story: 1.

Acting: 7.5.

Script: 7.

Visuals/Sound: 5.

Entertainment Value: 5.

OVERALL SCORE: 5.