Embarrassing cash grab

Rating: 3/10 (9 December 2016)

It finally happened, 'Harry Potter' has become a superhero movie. Wanna watch a movie that destroys basically everything you loved about the original eight films? Then, boy, do I have a movie for you. Do you want fun and magic? To bad, you get a dwarf stripper that sings with clouds of smoke and terribly animated "fantastic beasts". Remember the charismatic lead trio from HP? You liked them right? Well here's another trio but now none of them are compelling and are constantly used as comedic relief. Do you like stories that go places with things that happen? Well sucks to be you, sit back and watch generic cardboard characters do nothing for nearly two and a half hours.
But in all seriousness, this film is like watching a train wreck of everything you loved in slow motion...that goes on for three hours. This is not only the worst "Harry Potter" movie to date but it's one of the most disappointing films of the year. Nearly everything about this film was bad. Not everything, but everything that makes a movie interesting. If you like to see good performances and some neat direction then you might get some kicks out of this.
Because it felt like everyone tried. They tried their best, but performances and camera work can not save an awful script. And this script is truly atrocious. For starters, the dialogue is just the worst thing. When you have your characters say anything and everything on their minds things become very stale. There's never any tension between characters because they just say exactly how they are feeling.
But I am already giving this movie to much credit by saying that there are characters here. There aren't. There's a red head guy, a girl, and a fat Kevin James type. This makes up our "main characters". If you asked me to name specific traits that these "characters" had, I wouldn't be able to tell you. They only do things and say things because the script demands that it happens.
There's just no personality with this film. It feels just like a modern summer blockbuster, churned out to make a huge profit. And boy does this feel churned out. The entire film feels like a first draft that wasn't allowed to be fixed. Aside from the script, the visual effects suffer most from this. They look like that were finished last week. Normally I wouldn't complain too much with VFX but when your film has nearly $200 million dollars in its budget you'd expect it to at least look as good as the Lord of the Rings movies.
But the worst part of this film hands down is the story. Why? Because there isn't one. Three people wander around doing goofy things with goofy dinosaurs and then New York blows up. There wasn't any flow to the film. It felt like scene after scene of neat things that didn't really connect with anything. Things just sort of happen and then they go away without affecting the plot in any way whatsoever.
Now, if the characters were actually fleshed out then this wouldn't have been such a big problem. But since they are cardboard this meandering nature of the story is just unbearable to sit through. If your characters aren't interesting then you NEED a story, but this film just has things. Things that happen and things that go boom and things that are designed to get laughs.
For nearly two hours this is the "story" we get, things and bad jokes. Like elementary level jokes. Which may actually be the target audience for this film? There's a lot of bright things and people fall down and go boom which is horribly bland to watch for me, but I'd bet a child would get immense entertainment from this film. That's not to say only a child can like it, though. From my packed theater experience, a lot of not child really liked this film. And I can understand why, to an extent.
This film is designed to pander to die hard HP fans and kids, so that these young ones can be nostalgic about this film in ten years. But for me personally, this was an unbearable watch. Aside from performances and some neat camera work this film is horrendous. I don't even think I can classify it as a film. It's a movie that offers nothing below the surface and next to nothing on the surface. It's purely a popcorn film that is meant to do nothing but entertain. But I wasn't entertained.