Growing up having read all of the Harry Potter books, and watching the entire series of movies, it was a pleasant surprise to see that writer JK Rowling and director David Yates were back at it again with the prequel, "Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them." This movie follows a wizard who travels to New York, and accidentally stumbles upon some people after his creatures are set loose, which then wreaks havoc on the non magical world.
The movie is set decades before Harry Potter comes into the equation, and includes a solid cast of rising star, Eddie Redmayne, Katherine Waterson, and Dan Fogler. All showed a dynamic chemistry much like the core cast from the Harry potter movie series. Redmayne may be the most perfect character for this project as he brought a certain charm to the flick that may have lacked if someone else ended up playing his character.
You kind of knew coming into the movie that since JK Rowling had full permission to take the reigns on the script that it would be very different than the previous films. What was positive about this project was, both Yates and Rowling brought the fun and energetic fantasy roller coaster that so many people have grown to love. I loved how there was a sense of wittiness that was not previously present in the Potter series.
However, I felt that having Rowling solely focus on the script was kind of an issue. What the movie lacked was a concrete plot that everyone can follow. There was way too much going on at once. Not only was there the whole ordeal going on with Redmayne's character, but audiences had to worry about other character's stories, which at times felt pointless.
This would eventually lead to a lackluster ending. Because there were so many stories going on at once, there were multiple endings. This made the film seem drawn out and kind of annoying at that point. People will make the argument that because it was the first film of the new series it would make sense to have all of these endings for the characters. However, I still think it could have been done more effectively from a directorial standpoint.
Nonetheless, the chemistry between Fogler's character, and Redmayne's character was a pleasant attribute. I'm glad that we will see these two again in the future. I also believe that this will be more enjoyable for children because of the fun visuals and cinematography. I felt like the previous Harry Potter films were a little too violent and dark for kids to really get into them. This was definitely a well made flick from the visual standpoint.
In the end, the charismatic characters, and fun action set pieces were enough for me to walk out of the theater happy to see the wizarding world revived. Although it was very scattered, now that everyone knows about each character, I wouldn't be surprised to see a couple gems come out of this series in the years to come.
Rating :7/10
