Magic is gone, replaced by seven different visual effects companies

Rating: 7/10 (26 February 2017)

It is always good to try to summarize a movie you've just seen before you judge its quality, and in the case of Fantastic Beasts, the summary simply doesn't make any sense. It mixes things up, bringing up various "magical and wondrous" situations that, on further scrutiny, simply don't add up. But the special effects are great.
One thing you learn, though, by... err... watching between scenes? is that they have fully prepared for sequels. They have prepared a purely American magical world, with its own quirks and idiosyncrasies, brought in characters that did almost nothing, but are interpreted by great actors like Jon Voight and Johnny Depp, they left some things unsolved and they made the effort to force Eddie Redmayne act very well in this film.
However, one question I have to ask: why on Earth would anyone want sequels to this? It was a bland, nonsensical film filled with impossible to empathize characters like an almost autistic hero that loves animals more than people, an ambitious yet mostly incompetent auror that puts everyone in danger for her own sake, a child like floozy that reads minds only when it doesn't matter and a non magical character that does nothing but follow people around. The villain is hiding his intentions for the entire movie only to expose them for all to see in the final scenes for no real reason. The rest is filled with a side story about child abuse and special effects over special effects.
OK, I agree, people are hungry for magic. Anything would work, as exemplified by many of the nonsensical plots in Harry Potter that everyone just gobbled up, but at least those were real books, with real story lines. This was just an "Insert coin" sign made into a movie. I lost all confidence that Hollywood, J.K.Rowling advising or not, is capable of bringing the sense of magic and beauty that the original books and films had.
Bottom line: Probably Redmayne is an awkward person in real life, too, so it wasn't too difficult for him to play the role, but act he did and he did it well. For that alone I rate this average. Other than that, a pretty picture with no substance and a bitter aftertaste of greed.