Relatively Enjoyable Installment in the HP World But Confusing Because of Lack of Focus

Rating: 7/10 (20 November 2016)

Francis Ford Coppola once said that to make a film work, a filmmaker should be able to sum up the entire film in a single word or phrase. (He defined his epic "The Godfather" as "succession".) In "Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them", I wasn't quite sure of the main focus of the film, in other words I couldn't find a single phrase to sum to up what the story was about. Hence the film moves in many different directions, and while there is much to praise in the film, the screenplay was in need of a few more rewrites. At first the main focus seemed to be "save the beasts" but later it became "stop the Obscurus". Even by film's end, I wasn't entire convinced how these two ideas related to each other.
Newt Scamander (Eddie Redmayne), a Hogwarts graduate and scholar of fantastic beasts of sorts, arrives in New York. Scamander's character seems literally a cross between Harry Potter and renowned physicist Stephen Hawking (whom Redmayne played in the 2014 film "The Theory of Everything"). He's been engaged in a long quest to stop the highest officials of the magic world from exterminating the many magical beasts which infiltrate the magic world. The political body in America has been concerned that sometimes these beasts slip into the muggle (non-magic) world, and they are dedicated to ensure the muggle world never become privy to the magic world. Newt has brought with him a special "case" which contains many of these magical beasts, sort of like the magical equivalent of Noah's Ark.
Scamander crosses paths with Jacob Kowalski (Dan Fogler), a lovable nobody muggle/no-maj who simply desires to create a bakery in the city. He is going to one of the local banks to plead for a loan, and he also carries a case similar in size, color and design to that being held by Scamander, although his is simply filled with samples of his pastries. Through several happenstance encounters causing several of Newt's beasts to escape into the muggle world, Jacob and Newt become reluctant bedfellows, so-to-speak, as Jacob is introduced to the magic world before he can be "obliviated", the magic world's term for erasing muggles' memories of magic encounters. Newt is then arrested by Tina Goldstein (Katherine Waterston), an agent of the Ministry of Magic, Auror division, which enforces the strict law of magic, which includes keeping muggles ignorant of the presence of magic people. They also meet Queenie Goldstein (Alison Sudol), Tina's roommate who takes a liking to Jacob.
Simultaneously, the city is being ravaged by an unseen "force" which seems to have supernatural qualities and inclinations. This thing enjoys chewing up buildings and streets and then spitting them into rubble. An anti-witch/anti-magic group run by Mary Lou Barebone is making street speeches that "something" is invading their city, preaching on a soap box a little bit like Aimee Semple McPherson of the Pentecostal movement in Los Angeles in the early 20th century. She seems to be aware of the presence of "magic people" and fantastic beasts in her midst. She also runs an orphanage and "cares" for several children: Credence, Chastity, and Modesty. The eldest, a young man, is Credence who wears funereal clothing and acts and appears to be constantly troubled. At one point, the Barebone "family" (if family they can be called) enter one of the local newspapers asking the editor Henry Shaw, Sr. (Jon Voight) to look into the matter. He refuses the request. Credence is then befriended by someone in the magic world: Percival Graves (Colin Farrell), one of the top officials in the Ministry of Magic in America. Graves promises Credence he will become "welcome" in the magic world if the younger man helps him to find the dark force, called an obscurus; Graves is convinced the force is someone in the Barebone orphanage.
The story then moves basically on three fronts: Newt dealing with his escaped magical creatures, the anti-magic society among whom Credence has befriended a wizard and Ministry of Magic official, and the strange dark "force" which runs rampant through the city, smashing up the metropolis into the equivalent of Dresden during the Second World War. While these different ideas do finally converge by film's end, much of how all the pieces fit was very confusing. Some of the sequences where Newt was chasing escaped beasts, trying to get them back into his case, went on for too long. One good sequence, which is I think Rowling's strength, is when Newt introduces Jacob to his menagerie of beasts inside his case.
Overall, generally a good film, but it needed to be tightened more. The Harry Potter films were much better focused while this film seemed a bit "all over the place". Personally, the first 1/2 hour and the last 1/2 hour were the most interesting. Some parts of the middle hour were often perplexing. I liked the acting of all the leads, although sometimes Newt (Redmayne) was a bit difficult to hear, and he would move his head somewhat away from the camera. When he describes the dark force "the obscurus", he was somewhat enigmatic in his explanation. Maybe I wanted a flashback to see the creation of the obscurus and what it was about rather than the endless "lets get the creature" before the muggles find out sequences. Still, generally it holds together, but it was close to a misfire.