Lovely fairytale, infuriating movie

Rating: 4/10 (11 December 2016)

** SPOILERS! **
This film was entertaining enough as a diversion, and the visuals for the creatures were wonderful, as was the production design for 1920's New York.
But that's about all I can give it. The storyline had gigantic problems of *believability*, and not about magic and fantastic beasts, which of course are part of the premise. No, the believability problem is all to do with the awful screenplay. Here's just part of its laundry list of problems:
For starters, the lead character Scamander is infuriatingly incompetent and does one monumentally stupid and dangerous thing after another, except when the plot needs him to be competent instead.
The authorities disbelieve the protagonists only because someone's told them that's what authorities are supposed to do in movies. They also have no resources to devote to what's obviously a very dangerous situation, until suddenly they do. Maybe that's because it's not their job to deal with...no, wait, it's 100% their job, they just don't do it.
The movie thinks it's building two "romances", neither one of which is even remotely believable.
The scene with the giant occamy flying serpent illustrates everything wrong with the writing. Under extreme pressure and in an unfamiliar and dangerous setting, instructions to quickly "Find some sort of an insect!" seem a little dubious, but perhaps that has *some* chance of working out. But then add "...and also a teapot!" and bizarrely *that* becomes the thing I can't believe about this particular scene.
...That is, until moments later that's eclipsed by the impossibility of accurately throwing a small bug about forty feet through the air. Why not just stage the action so that a throw makes sense?? Or, heck, we're in a department store in the 1920's, how about putting a cool pneumatic tube in the scene and use that, or...or really *anything* better than an impossible throw?
And that's the whole point: This expanding-and-shrinking, silver-egg-laying, great flying serpent is the least unbelievable thing in this sequence. And that extends well beyond this scene; the movie has lots of details both large and small that take you out of it by being just as poorly conceived. As another example, how easy is it to find something by searching ALL OF MANHATTAN, on foot and using mundane means? As it turns out, totally easy! Ah, but how do you do that if what you're searching for is invisible? Simple--by it being not invisible when it's convenient, that's how!
And as an especially bothersome problem I had with the movie's constant "And you know what else?" storyline, can you really just *casually* have a telepath reading minds and making use of people's secrets willy-nilly? Once again, I'm fine with mind-reading as a premise, but why is there no reaction beyond a bit of personal embarrassment? Even in a magical world the ability to read minds should be a Big Deal, but it attracts no attention at all.
Even though die-hard Potter fans seem to be eating this all up, this storyline is actually far more of a fairytale, not something that fits in the style of the "Potterverse" at all. It invokes way too much disbelief for me to suspend, which keeps intruding on the movie's enjoyable parts--which again are the creatures and the production. Kids will love it, and will want the plush toys that are no doubt already on store shelves. Adults not paying too much attention will also have a fun time. So maybe the way to truly enjoy this movie is to have a few drinks first before you go in to the theater.