Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them - Spoiler-Free Review (Reposted)

NOTE: This is a review drafted on 12/29/2016 on a different blog that is no longer in use. I decided to transfer content from that website to this to maintain consistency. 

Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them - Spoiler-Free Review

Directed By: David Yates

Starring: Eddie Redmayne, Katherine Waterston, Colin Farrell, Ezra Miller, Fine Frenzy, Dan Fogler

Blurb/Synopsis: The year is 1928, and New Scamander (Eddie Redmayne) has just completed a global excursion to find and document extraordinary creatures. Arriving in New York for a brief stopover, he finds himself entangled in a plot to recapture all his escape creatures after No-Maj (Muggle) Jacob Kowalski (Dan Fogler) lets some loose.

Expectations/Background: Everyone new that J.K. Rowling couldn't stay away from the Wizarding World forever, and alas, here we are, at the newest film in the "Harry Potter" franchise. After having heard that this movie was being released, I did some research, and having read the Harry Potter books, I was familiar with the fact that Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them was a textbook read by Harry Potter at Hogwarts. And again, after watching the trailer for the movie, I thought that this movie would be fine. There seemed nothing special, and it seemed to be banking heavily on the nostalgia factor, which was slightly worrying. But there was nothing in the marketing and the promotional material to make me overjoyed to see this spin-off. And when news came out that J.K. Rowling wanted 5 total films in this franchise, and that she had already written a screenplay for the sequel, which had already been greenlit, I had doubts that this was going to be a good standalone film rather than a sequel setup.

The Movie: This was a very interesting movie indeed. On the whole, I considerably enjoyed it, and it was the kind of film that when you left the theater, you felt like you had a good time. But I wasn't so sure. Because thinking back on it, I remembered being bored for the first hour, because a lot of it was set-up, and a lot of it was set-up about characters that you had no idea what their motivation was, or set-up about plot lines that eventually went nowhere. But the second part of the movie was brilliant, emotional, action-packed, and character-driven, so when I left the theater, I felt so torn between the two sides of that coin. Letting it sit for a couple hours, I decided I enjoyed the movie overall for what it was, but needed to see it again. And upon second viewing, my thoughts were cemented: I was bored the first part of the film, but thourghouly enjoyed myself the second part. And this is not a knock against the film-making, because the film-making was masterful, with great shots and scenes between characters. And the acting itself was driven, although there was not much of it to begin with. It was unclear who the antagonist of the film was until later on in the movie, by which point, the movie does a bait-and-switch. The characters themselves were decently fleshed out, with a couple of them being characterized more than others. The acting was quite good, more on that later, but it serviced the plot and characters that they were given. Overall, I felt that this movie suffered from too much exposition and dragged the first hour. A lot of it was reliant on "Look! Remember this nod to Harry Potter? We hope you do!" However, watching the last hour again, there is a real sense of stakes to it, and the emotional punch at the end serves the story well. I'm going to say I enjoyed the positives more than the negatives, but I can say that there are scenes that I could pick out of the movie and not watch, or even cut them out if I were an executive.

The Cast/Characters: The cast that J.K. Rowling assembled was very, very good. Eddie Redmayne plays a whimsical sort of wizard, Newt Scamander, who is caught up in an adventure he had no intention of joining. Katherine Waterston does a fine job as a counter-point to Newt, as does Fine Frenzy, but the standout performance in the film was Dan Fogler. Dan Fogler's character, Jacob Kowalski, was like the lens that the audience used to see into this magical world. We never really had that with Harry Potter because everyone was at Hogwarts and believed in magic, but this was the first time that we had seen a non-magical character interact with wizards. And he has a couple scenes where there are just some gut-punching emotional moments that you see coming, yet hit you like a bullet. As for Colin Farrell and Ezra Miller, their storylines don't really device their characters. However, both of them play the part that they were told to play, and that is enough said about them, as they are both excellent actors.

The Villain(s): Without giving anything away, I will say the antagonistic force/person in the film is a little confusing, and a little contrived. One of the main villains is trying to recapture the beasts that have escaped Newt's custody, which is fine, but it evolves into something much greater that I think was a little too big for the first movie. It does distract a little from the third act, which otherwise was fantastic, no pun intended, and the buildup for the antagonist is very forced, and jarringly so. Coming into this movie fresh and not knowing anything about this subplot, it took me by surprise, and took me out of the movie. While not awful like in certain movies, the villain was not what it seemed, and was rushed, almost forced into the film.

The Verdict: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them is an enjoyable film. There are moments of the old films that so adeptly capture the wonder and charm of Harry Potter, and there are others that feel as if it belongs in a completely different movie. The film suffers from heavy exposition, and a boring, dull first act, but picks itself up to deliver a gut punch and show that the magic is still in this franchise. Letter Grade: B-. Number Score: 8.0