A bad side effect.

Rating: 6/10 (30 April 2018)

Don't read this review if you liked this movie. I wasn't expecting this to be that good even when I saw the previews for it. After having seen it, I feel a bit sad that this movie exists. The reason that it exists is because it's a cash-grab for studios. They can claim otherwise, but I really don't believe that anyone actually said with a straight face "you know what I bet would be great? If we adapted a fake magical textbook into a movie." It's almost like Warner Brothers execs are admitting that they'll do whatever they need to so that they can milk as much money as possible from their Harry Potter property.
I'm not a huge Harry Potter fan, but I still enjoy the movies and books to some extent. It's a cool world and the books and movies are all pretty good. But this did not even feel like it was in the same world of the original stories. The thing I'm noticing with these spinoff movies that are starting to become a sub-genre is that they are (aside from not being that good) lack the things that people really like about the original series they are derived from. A major thing that was appealing about the Harry Potter stories was that the entire series was a mystery surrounding Harry himself and why he survived where so many others had died. The whole wizarding world was an amazing backdrop to those stories and the elements of that world often tied into the story in important ways.
This movie, unsurprisingly, did not incorporate the world as well as all that. It almost felt like I was watching Newt Scamander and company play a big game of Pokémon in 1920's New York. Some of the scenes where they had to catch Newt's creatures were interesting and engaging to watch, and thank God, because there was very little that interested me for the rest of the movie. I actually thought I might be in for something good after the opening scene with the little mole creature running wild in a bank, very good choice. But after that the movie got involved in a boring plot with a bunch of uninteresting and flat characters. Proof that this is a cash grab is further displayed by the way the movie sets up a sequel featuring Grindelwald and a younger Dumbledore.
I don't want to fault any individuals that worked on this movie for what I perceive to be its lack of quality. But it was sad to see so many big and good actors wasted on this movie. Really, you could have cast anyone in these roles and it probably would have done just as well and even given some up and coming actors a chance to shine. I don't know that this would ever have been a great movie regardless of how much work was done on the story, but I think there could have been a much better story derived from it.
This is a fine family movie, and I won't think less of you if you enjoy it. But I ask that you not support any of the sequels that come from it. In my opinion movies like this are barring the way to a lot of good original movies like Get Out. I get it that sequels and reboots and all those extensions of existing IP make money, but if they are as bad as this movie was, then seriously it needs to stop. I've ceased to be that impressed by visual effects, which is really the only thing that this movie brings to the table, and I hope that I'm not the only one. I'm not saying adaptations like this shouldn't be made, but I would just say that if you're going to make it, at least try to make one that has potential to be good (yeah, I'm talking to you too, Rogue One). Overall Rating: 5.2/10.