Without a charismatic lead, good characters or a good plot, its much weaker than the worst of the Harry Potter films.

Rating: 5/10 (26 June 2020)

The Harry Potter universe has become one of the most lucrative and remarkable cinematic phenomena we know. Personally, I am one of many teenagers who read all the books and saw all the films but I was afraid when I heard about the idea of making this film. The environment is very different from what we saw in Harry Potter and, if it weren't for the mention of several elements we saw in previous films, the link would be very small. Accentuating the differences is the fact that this film takes place between World Wars and has New York as its setting.
The idea for this film came from the small book "Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them", and it follows the adventures of their fictional author, Newt Scamander. He goes to New York with a suitcase of little monsters, some of them escape and their eagerness to recapture them puts the city in an uproar and concerns the magical authorities. However, some incidents are attributed to Scamander's animals, who refute responsibilities and end up engaged in an effort to discover what powerful evil being has caused them.
The story, dark and mysterious, manages to keep our interest but the prestige of Harry Potter universe and our willingness to see how it all will end helped a lot. In fact, now we can check all its problems, which make it more boring than the worst of Harry Potter films: it takes a long time to develop and the story, initially confusing, turns out to be illogical and underdeveloped. Another problem is their poorly developed and generally one-dimensional characters. Scamander may be nerdy but he lacks charisma and leadership. The Goldstein witches goes from naive to stubborn. Credence looks like a man with a traumatic depression and Kowalski is just an idiotic "muggle".
David Yates did a good job. I am convinced that he was decisive in preventing this film from being a fiasco. In fact, with all the problems, the overall performance of the cast, mostly little known to me, is naturally affected and only the hand of a skilled director could help them. Despite being a good actor, Eddie Redmayne does not perform miracles and is far from his best. Dan Fogler managed to be more interesting and charismatic than he, in the same proportion that he knew how to be funny and to captivate public's sympathy. Alison Sudol also captures our sympathy by giving her character a candid and sweet aura, but she is so sugary and stupid that I wanted to hit her with a chair. Another actor able of becoming sympathetic was Ezra Miller, but I think he didn't have enough material to develop his character beyond anger and a depressive cry. Katherine Waterston was uninteresting. Colin Farrell is somber but doesn't seem to know what he's doing. Carmen Ejogo is hateful. Worse than she, Samantha Morton seems to have been inspired by the wicked witch of the fairy tales. We also have the additions of Ron Perlman, unrecognizable but impeccable, and Johnny Depp, who does nothing more than an irrelevant and uninteresting cameo.
Technically, this is a very visual film, thanks to tons of very high quality CGI, as we would expect. Its an expensive film, a super-production where green screen was the key. As it should be, the film is loaded with magical creatures that we have never seen before and each one is more incredible than the other. I especially liked the niffler, which looks like a friendly kleptomaniac platypus. Cinematography is characterized by good colors, a misty but pleasant environment, good use of light and dark and very clear footage. To add aesthetic quality, we have the charm of the Thirties, the golden decade for New York. Few decades have given us so much charm and style: magnificent cars, clothes and props that are still in fashion today and an incredible urban landscape, where there is no lack of fog and rain. For a moment, I almost felt like I was in a gangster movie, just missing the jazz background. The soundtrack, by James Newton Howard, is good and epic, but it is not surprising for those who has seen Harry Potter.
Although the film exudes style, it lacks content, good characters and a strong and charismatic lead. Anyway, it achieved a feat that even Harry Potter, who broke box office records, managed to achieve: finally the franchise won an Oscar, for Best Costume Design, which in fact was deserved.