The beasts are fantastic, but the film lags

Rating: 6/10 (11 December 2016)

As a Harry Potter fan since the pre-film Harry Potter times, I was clearly extremely excited about the expansion of the magical world that I had come accustomed to explore in the film theatre. The awe-inspiring creativity and ability to project a completely new world onto the screen was what kept on bringing me and millions others back year after year to watch the next instalment of the Harry Potter saga. However, this is a new saga, and, unfortunately, as the reviewer from Entertainment Weekly aptly described, this one seems "numbingly inconsequential." Do not get me wrong, this is not a bad film. But it is not a *good* film either. It is just fine. And that is disappointing.
I found it hard to get into the story for the first hour or so. It just did not grab my attention, despite of all the action going on. Later on, I did find myself engrossed in the film, but that was not quite enough. The darkness that the HP films went to by the end is well maintained here. The visuals are beautiful. The CGI is amazing and even a notch better than the last couple of Harry Potter films. There is nothing wrong per se. It is just lacking an emotional connection. And that may be because it is compared to Harry Potter and if we are holding the film to that standard, it never will live up to it. It just cannot. The most redeeming factor for me was the feeling that it was very appropriate to have such a bleak view of the U.S. in the wake of Donald Trump's election. While this was overall not quite as exciting nor engaging as I had hoped it would be, it did set a stage with enough unknowns about this new wizarding world of the U.S. that it will probably easily give itself to the other 4 sequels. Maybe they will develop this emotional connection that this first instalment failed to achieve.