Still don't see the appeal

Rating: 5/10 (6 April 2020)

Written by JK Rowling and directed by David Yates, Fantastic Beasts and Where To Find Them is film set in the Harry Potter universe and serves as a spinoff prequel to said universe.
Let me start off by saying that I am not a die-hard HP fan. I've seen each and every one of the movies, but have hardly read any of the books; long story short though, I had a friend from elementary school and he was literally obsessed with the HP franchise, but I've not heard from or spoken to him since then. With that said, the HP franchise does in fact hold a place in my childhood. I've played two of the video games, that being Quidditch World Cup and The Prizoner of Azkaban, so there's that.
That being said, I don't recall how exactly I felt about there being a direct spinoff of said franchise. But what I do know is that, upon my first time watching it, I wanted simply to be entertained. Unfortunately, that was not the case; at least, not at first. Upon my second viewing, my opinion on it soon changed. Upon my third viewing though, that soon began to where off.
Now with all of that out of the way, do I think this is a good movie? The short answer is not really. Did I at least enjoy it? The short answer is ... kinda.
Here are the things that I liked:
The scenes with the Niffler - All I can really say is that that little creature was the best character in the entire movie.
Dan Fogler as Jacob - When I first read about Foglar being cast in this film, I was pretty psyched. But after watching it the first time, I found myself to be pretty underwhelmed. It seemed to me that the man was pretty much type-cast as the dimwitted comic-relief-side-kick. But because of that, I was apparently oblivious to the performance that was given by the actor. I mean, when the script doesn't require him to look and act like a buffoon, Foglar seemed to have been giving the character more emotional depth than said script had called for.
The makeup and costume designs looked spot-on, that's all I have to say about that.
Now here are the things that I didn't like:
The writing - I have to be honest and say that the story and plot-structure in this could not have been any clunkier in this.
The main story focuses on Newt Scamander trying to retrieve each and every one of the titular beasts that he accidentally unleashed while in the city of New York.
There are at least two subplots: one involving a troubled young boy is abused by his adopted stepmother and turns out to be more powerful than meets the eye, and the other involving a wealthy family of some king.
This was J.K. Rowling's first time as a screenwriter and boy did it show; well not so much show as it did tell most of the time. This film was littered with dull exposition.
And I'm not exaggerating as one of the characters literally spells out that the term "no-maj" is used to referrer to people who are 'non magic.' I mean seriously Rowling, you came up with the term "muggle" when referring to English people who are non-magic, but thinking of a word for the 'Americans' was apparently too difficult?
The direction - I know I'm not the only one thinking this because I've read other reviews complaining about how grey and gloomy this film looked for most of the time.
Yes, I completely agree, but must also mention how inconsistent the tone itself came across as. Within every twenty seconds, it would shift from being light-hearted and humorous to being dark and depressing a moment later.
Last but certainly not least is the CGI. I could not sanction how cheap the special effects looked in this. I mean, when Newt shows Jacop the creatures for the first time, the movie tries to convince us audience that it is a whimsical scene. But honestly, I found it really hard to grasp as the creatures looked too distractingly fake.
Oh, and I almost forgot to mention the big twist. When I first watched that scene alone, I was like "What ...? Um ... okay then."
All in all, Fantastic Beasts was hyped by critics as a fun magical spinoff of the Harry Potter franchise. It was magical, but only by design, and it was barely fun to say the least. With all that said, I'm rating it 5.2/10.