An adolescent tone ruined interesting ideas

Rating: 5/10 (6 February 2020)

What I mean is that the adventurer tone of the original movies was perfect for the characters. Unwise kids fascinated and scared, reacting to the unknown world. That's fun to watch and the naïve kids discovering how the world works is a blast and believable family entertainment. To me, doing the same thing with adults is often a terrible decision. It could be good but it's harder to pull off. When the characters and overall story are introduced in the first 40 something minutes, the new ideas for this saga feel fresh and interesting (wizards against humans conflict, prejudice, wizards in opposition of how to face their problem with the humans, etc.), but around that time, the "adventure tone" takes over the movie, with "sweet" and "scary" set pieces ala Harry Potter but again, with 30 years old in the places of the kids. The kid friendly tone felt, to me, forced and kind of ridiculous and unbelievable. The jokes; the "fantastic beasts" introduced; the relationships formed by the characters; felt more appropriated for younger audiences or characters. The 4 leads were basically 4 clichés walking. Reacting exactly in the most generic ways to everything. The villains are done better, but they have little screen time.
The visual effects were kind of weak for the most part, although they really delivered in the third act. The score was fine, but it wasn't especially good. The acting was fine too, with only Fogler making a 100% cliché of a character tolerable. A character that could've been pretty annoying in other hands. In the end, it just didn't work for me and if this is the tone the saga is going to go for, it would probably not make me fall in love like the original.