Can be disappointing for a die hard HP fan

Rating: 7/10 (21 November 2016)

First of all, I had to admit that I'm an extremely huge fan of the Harry Potter books. I read all the 7 books seven times. I liked most of the movies, especially Alfonso Cuaron's and Mike Newell's versions: The Prsioner of Azkaban and The Goblet of Fire. After the forth film, David Yates had been hired to direct, which gave the last four movies a pretty dark tone. I don't like his directing style, mainly for the poor cinematography, so I wasn't satisfied with Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them's direction.
But the direction isn't just the only con of this feature. The performances are awful. Eddie Redmayne probably had 3 facial expressions overall the 133 minutes running time. Colin Farrell is very badass... while he is walking. But when he had to say a sentence, his attitude falls down to an amateur level. The female leading characters doesn't have a personality such as the other unwritten characters. Only Dan Fogler's character had a bit of complexity.
As for the visual's, the cinematography terrible, but the visual effects, especially the CGI creatures surpassed my expectations. They are stunning, and it's sad that some individual's complain about that they could use puppet's and practical effects instead of CGI.
One of the most disappointing feature for me was the soundtrack. The problem wasn't that the classic instrumental Harry Potter theme can be heard from scene to scene, but that during the conclusion Charlie Clouser's Saw Theme can be literally heard, and I'm not kidding.
Overall the movie is enjoyable, but can't be mentioned in the same level of the Potter films. Not bad for a beginning of a franchise which will contain five installments, but the crew should definitely pay more attention to the screenplay, the characters and the cinematography.
7/10
P.S.: I was pretty surprised that J. K. Rowling joined the Producers Guild of America.