I haven’t gone to see a movie in theaters in over a month, but on Thursday, November 17 at 11 p.m. I went to see “Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them.” That’s right. Basically the midnight premiere of the movie. It was a little strange to see a “Harry Potter” movie without the characters from those films, but I guess it makes sense because it takes place almost 70 years before the events of “Sorcerer’s Stone.” Even without Harry, Ron, and Hermione, it was an excellent movie and I definitely suggest you go to see it if you care even a little about the Wizarding World.
It felt a little strange going into this movie with no idea what was going to happen. With the “Harry Potter” series, I had read each book before seeing the movie (because books are always better than the film versions). I mean, there’s the textbook version of “Fantastic Beasts,” but that was just the inspiration for this film and it honestly worked so well. I didn’t want the movie to end, I just wanted to keep living in that world.
Sometimes (or most of the time) when I watch a movie, I end up liking the characters that everyone else hates. For example, Tina (played by Katherine Waterston) was the character that the friends that I went with absolutely hated. They said she was boring and annoying. I do agree that her character wasn’t developed quite enough, but I thought she was a great character overall. Then Ezra Miller as Credence annoyed the crap out of me and I don’t think that was the right role for the actor. Yet my friends all loved him?
It’s honestly so hard to talk about this movie without spoiling it. There were some names mentioned from the “Harry Potter” series, most obviously Hogwarts, where Newt Scamander (Eddie Redmayne) had attended. Along with that, two other somewhat significant characters from the original series were also mentioned and might make some appearances in the future films (one of them may or may not have made a brief appearance in this first film and the other was confirmed, I’m pretty sure). I know that’s all very confusing, but that’s why you need to go see the movie so we can talk about it.
I also loved all of the references to the Harry Potter films. I caught a few of them. In particular, there’s a line about someone having a little dirt or something on their nose which is a reference to what Hermione said to Ron in “Sorcerer’s Stone.” There was also a scene in a train station where someone Apparated in a way that made them look like they were coming out of the brick barrier referring to the “wall” to get into Platform 9¾.
The only major issue I had with this movie was the CGI, which I am always very picky about (literally every time I think about “Once Upon A Time”). Since the movie was about the fantastic beasts, a lot of them had to be created on a computer. For example, there was a Hippogriff that, although it looked cool, just did not look real enough. Some of my friends were also upset that the goblins were CGI as opposed to using real actors like “Harry Potter” did.
Overall though, it was an excellent movie. I very much look forward to the next four films and hope they are just as magical as this one was. Thanks for reading this quick little review. It might have been a little confusing, but I was trying to not include spoilers, so I’m going to use that as my excuse. Do you plan to see the movie? And if you already have, what did you think of it?
