It's at its best when dealing with actual 'fantastic beasts', but it's just terribly uneven, I'm afraid.

Rating: 5/10 (18 November 2018)

'Fantastic Beasts And Where To Find Them (2015)' is such an uneven film, going from some light, whimsical and often quite childish sequences of 'beast catching' straight into jarringly dark scenes featuring an abusive mother beating her adopted son or moments of quite brutal supernatural murder. This makes it feel like two or three totally different pictures violently forced together, each one of them being rushed and losing their proper impact and possible audience because of it. Pair this incredibly inconsistent tone and messy structure with the occasionally more noticeable, frustrating and, frankly, bad writing - including incongruous, downright poor character motivations and overall logic - and a 'sequel-bait' ending that actually makes very little sense and is a mockery of the whole "one-time, disconnected spin-off" idea, and you have an incredibly spotty experience that sometimes works - when our genuinely quite likeable and well played lead is getting on with the actual 'fantastic beasts' plot line - but is, even at its best, by far the worst movie to come out of the 'wizarding world' (at the time of its release). Of course, it no longer holds that title, thanks to the release of its immediate follow-up. 5/10