Queenie / Kowalski for the win?

Rating: 7/10 (24 November 2016)

Darn it, Fantastic Beasts, now you've got me mentally composing Queenie / Kowalski fan fiction in my head. You did this on purpose, didn't you? Ending with two characters forbidden by law to marry getting back together and restarting their romance. You wanted people thinking about how they could hide or go abroad or change the laws-- and applying it to real world situations. Didn't you? Ha, don't deny, movie makers. I know a "give them sexual tension with no resolution so they'll write fanfic and get invested in these characters and come back for more later" when I see one.
We went to this movie because it looked like it might have some great action, and it did. Tom caught me up on what I needed to know about the Harry Potter universe because we went, which wasn't really that much, just stuff about how magic works in that universe and some terminology. I had no trouble following the plot or understanding the characters, even though I have neither read the Harry Potter books nor seen the movies.
I really liked the character of Newt, even though he kind of high-handedly dragged people and animals into his adventures without seeming to consider the effects on them first. If he is supposed to have Asperger's / High Functioning Autistic then that kind of goes with how society views such people, but I'm not really sure it's how such people actually are. I'm suspecting that he's supposed to be an Asperger's type person because he doesn't look people in the eye, doesn't like touching people but has no problem touching and relating with animals. He seems to prefer animals to people, and that's the thing that makes me really relate to him, because I prefer animals to people too. Except for the not looking in the eye thing, I have pretty much all his traits and eccentricities. (Yeah, I'm even a writer, too.) I don't like to kiss either. I think this may be the first time I've seen a major American movie with an adult main character who doesn't like to kiss. It's actually really nice to have that affirmed as an OK way to be. I love the part where Newt is in the middle of a fight / escape scene and sees a cat (OK it's a big cat, but whatever) and is suddenly happy and excited and content to be where he is. That is so me.
I didn't have a lot of expectations for this movie going in, except that I had seen the trailer at another movie and saw some great special effects in it. So I expected great fx, and this movie delivered them. It was unexpectedly watchable for a movie based on kids' books. The reason I'm not giving it a super high rating: 1. the opening sequence with the newspapers, which no doubt gave important info about the plot or characters, was unreadable from where I was sitting, far left second row. 2. because the way it ended left a major plot hole hanging, the whole magical people are forbidden to marry non magical people thing, and I'm sure they did it on purpose, and now I can't stop thinking about how to resolve the secondary characters' romance and it's Thanksgiving and that's not what I am supposed to be thinking about. I'm kind of mad at the scriptwriters for that.