More of the same

Rating: Null/10 (21 January 2017)

If you liked, let's say the last three Harry Potter films, you're going to enjoy this film just fine. It's cut very much from the same cloth, with excellent special effects, wizarding world oddities, unsuspecting muggles, wand-waving, all that jazz.
Unfortunately it also shares a lot of flaws with those three movies. The colour palette is still pretty grim and dark, as is the general mood of the world. The characters are quirky and likable, but also rather one-dimensional or at least they don't grow a lot during the movies. The dialogue goes up and down in quality, though can be quite excellent in certain moments. And yes, dear J. K. Rowling, we get it. Bureaucracy is the root and symptom of all evil. All. Evil. Can we please move on to other subject matters because this is getting tedious.
On the other hand the film does improve upon certain things. It's nice to see the American wizarding society, though as stated, it shares certain annoying similarities with the British one. All the eponymous fantastic beasts are simply fascinating and the movie broadens Rowling's world excellently. I also like that the main character Newt uses these critters in combat as well, because for some reason the makers of these films seem to think that magical combat has to consist of fast-flying coloured blobs of light. And nothing else!
All this criticism aside, I cannot help but admit that I like the movie. I love the Harry Potter universe and I will see these movies however many they end up making. But that doesn't mean that I cannot point out the flaws. I love it that much.