Gotta catch 'em all, gotta save 'em all

Rating: 6/10 (28 February 2017)

Once upon a time, there was a peaceful city of New York, the only place where action ever happens. And it was living its usual mundane life, with self-righteous people fighting the badass people and the badass people fighting back. And they would have been confronting each other happily ever after, but then came a sociophobic British pokemon catcher moonlighting as a WWF volunteer, and it all went haywire...
Just as a disclaimer, I'm a total muggle, devoid of any worship for the Harry Potter universe. So all these people who are so powerful, but only as long as they have a phallic symbol in their hands to play with, have absolutely zero effect on me, well, maybe besides cracking me up. Yet I was hoping that maybe the ties of Fantastic Beasts to HP would be loose enough for me to enjoy the story it tells. And while the connection was pretty thin indeed, at least allowing me to understand what's going on without the previous experience of watching the Harry Potter movies or reading the books, the essence of this film was still too weak to my muggle taste.
Yes, we're given some sort of conflict. The magically endowed people are in hiding, something like what the mutants were doing in X-Men: First Class. And, just like in First Class, the mere mortals don't really enjoy the perspective of having such potent and unpredictable neighbors. Those who want to retain the status quo are obviously the good guys, but there's this mysterious baddie who rebels against the set order of things and wants the magical world to be reckoned with at last (wonder if he wears a metal helmet too). To make things worse, some chaotic forces wreak havoc on the peaceful city, threatening an already shaky balance.
So what's gonna be the last straw that breaks the camel's back? What will be the center of this convoluted story? Maybe a tormented and cast-out creepy young dude played by Ezra Miller, who's been brilliant at portraying such twisted and complex characters since The Perks of Being a Wallflower and We Need to Talk About Kevin? Maybe an unlikely bond between the depressed foster kid and our loner monster lover? Maybe a fragile feeling between a sensitive ginger Brit and a hyperactive American brunette? Nah, forget this petty nonsense. We'll put in the very center of the story a kleptomaniac platypus and a huge whale/hippo in heat. And don't forget a big shiny griffon, because this is what the audience wants to see!
Seriously though, Fantastic Beasts suffers from the same illness the whole Harry Potter franchise seems to have been susceptible to from the very beginning. That is, it brings in so many visually fascinating, but substantially hollow things, but when it comes to the real human drama it's awfully shy to develop things or let them at least be fully revealed. The mysterious villain remains a mere rumor until the very end, and even when he's finally exposed you're left to wonder what's so villainous about him at all. The chaotic threat to the very foundations of the world gets disposed of within minutes with no second thought, making you guess what the fuss was about to begin with. And the characters that showed the most promise walk into the sunset without ever unfolding their true potential.
In this story full of magic and weird creatures, the only character that stands out is that poor no-maj who just wanted to get a loan in a bank and simply ended up in the wrong place at the wrong time. For him, this kaleidoscope of magic flickering and slapstick action is genuinely novel, so the guy is enjoying every second of it. And why shouldn't he? After all, his real life takes action in a canning factory, so a fairy tale dream would make a pleasant distraction. But it's not the dream itself that makes it so precious, its the inherent fleetingness of it which allows you to take only the best into the real world. And while Mr Kowalski had been graced with a gift of oblivion, nobody is gonna erase our own memory. So, when the two hours are over and the credits start rolling, we'll be unfortunate to ask ourselves: true, it's been all cute and easy to digest, but is that really all the film had to offer?