Standing on the shoulders of Harry Potter

Rating: 6/10 (20 November 2016)

Let me preface this review by saying that I am personally a huge fan of Harry Potter, having grown up with the books and movies my whole life. I personally just think that as her first outing into screen writing, Rowling should perhaps have joined with a co-writer to smooth out some very obvious flaws that prevent this movie from being all it could have been.
The first and probably most important flaw with the film is simply the story structure. As I mentioned, the screenplay would have benefited greatly from a co-writer that could have helped prevent the vast myriad of stories opened up from stepping on one anothers toes and clouding our view of the main story. The auxiliary stories that Rowling weaves into this overarching narrative of a new dark wizard (Grindelwald) simply don't work out that well. The sheer number of them (the details of which I won't spoil here, you'll have to watch for yourself) simply draws out and complicates what is essentially a plot to obtain a dangerous power and deploy it as a weapon. The main focus of the trailers and build up, the monsters and Newts' quest to recapture them, provides some fun and relief from the admittedly darker tones of the main plot. This is all that can be said about Newts escaped monsters as, although entertaining, they provide no insight into the main narrative whatsoever.
A second, but still rather problematic, issue is the characters themselves and the way they are portrayed. Redmaynes' Newt Scamander can be fun at times, but equally as frustrating at others with a fairly weak performance and a tendency to mumble lines at some points. That being said he does bring a certain likability to his character which I'm sure can be exploited in further adventures. The supporting cast are generally quite forgettable with the standout performer being Dan Foglers' portrayal of Kowalski, Newts' no-maj sidekick. The romance that develops between Kowalski and Queenie is a perfect example of the stories that don't quite work out and therefore shouldn't really be in there at all.
The ending as a whole left myself and many around me wanting, as I'm sure many of you will realize if and when you see it for yourself, employing a classic "and it was all a dream" type scenario to escape any repercussions from the dramatic final(ish) sequence. The reason I say finalish is that because of the number of stories opened up throughout the movie there is a sizable chunk of tying up loose ends to be done. During these revisiting scenes I found myself expecting the movie to end at least three times before it actually did, a further example of Rowlings' lack of experience as a screenwriter.
Overall I'd say there is definitely something to work on in the future and although there are elements of inexperience in the story, it was certainly a fun experience to return to the wizarding world if only for a while. I must say that I appreciate Rowlings' attempts to reflect reality in this story with themes of animal conservation, segregation and abuse as they convey good messages of preservation of nature and unity of different people to a wide audience but that unfortunately cannot make up for what was, to me, a disappointing continuation of the mythos.