A Fun Film, but only if you're familiar with the Wizarding World

Rating: 6/10 (14 September 2017)

I really did enjoy most of this movie. I loved the four main characters, Newt, Tina, Jakob, and Queenie, and thought the movie probably could've been made around the four of them, but there were two side plots that felt completely out of place. They start the film with newspaper clippings on the disappearance of Gellert Grindelwald as well as stories on the New Salemers. None of this matters to Newt, who only wants to find Fantastic Beasts, as well as deliver one of them to Arizona. That's all well and good, but he gets entangled with the New Salemers, and later the MACUSA, the American Ministry of Magic. If you're unfamiliar with the Wizarding World, then a lot of this, especially the story of Grindelwald, might be confusing. I watched it with my father, who'd never seen the HP series (except the first movie, when it first came out), and he found it to be confusing. I found myself explaining the different spells and words to him, as well as explaining who Grindelwald was because they just never explained it very well. The same goes with the New Salemers. All we know about them is that they're super religious and anti-witch/wizard. The New Salemers felt like a clichÃ© and were just put in for Tina's demotion from Auror to make sense. There was a lot of this that I did like. I really wish they'd spent more time on the actual Fantastic Beasts. The 1920's time period was absolutely delightful, especially with Muggle/No-Mag Jakob experiencing everything for the first time. I don't think the story was completely thought out, and it could've been a lot better. But, still fun for fans of Harry Potter. I really hope they clear up all of the questions in the second film.