Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them
starring Eddie Redmayne, Katherine Waterston, Dan Fogler, Alison Sudol, Colin Ferrell, Jon Voight and Johnny Depp
written by J.K. Rowling
directed by David Yates
Rating: ◊◊◊◊◊
Once again, I was in Ebina City for a part-time job with time to spare, so I went to the local Toho Cinema multiplex. I watched this because I enjoyed the Harry Potter series and I wanted to see what other wizarding thing JK Rowling had written.
I hated it. I almost fell asleep in the theater. The Harry Potter story features three close friends caught up in the middle of a grand struggle between Good and Evil, and how their camaraderie saves them. With Fantastic Beasts Rowling has gone back in time to the 1920s and re-set her wizarding story in New York City. I thought it would be interesting to compare American wizards to English ones. Eddie Redmayne stars as Newt Scamander, an English wizard visiting America to return a Fantastic Beast to its native Arizona. Newt is a Fantastic Beast nerd. The creatures he carries in his suitcase accidentally escape and all hell breaks loose as he tries to recover them with the help of an American Muggle (non-magic person) that he’s accidentally got involved with. Newt unintentionally stumbles into a struggle within the American magical community between powerful opposing forces similar to what Harry Potter lives through eighty years later in England.
The final Harry Potter films were called “dark.” I agree, and Fantastic Beasts is similarly dark. There’s destruction everywhere as witches and wizards fight among themselves so ferociously that they expose their world to non-magic eyes. The film is showing in both 2D and 3D formats. I saw it in 2D. But because it was planned as a 3D movie it was made in such a way that the screen is constantly filled with things - debris - flying towards the audience in a thrilling, exciting way. It’s beyond tiresome now because that’s exactly what the last Harry Potter films were like.
My point is that I think JK Rowing has pushed this Good vs. Evil thing too far. Enough already. Do something new for a change.
Eddie Redmayne gives me the creeps. He’s ugly as shit and looks like either he was born with a genetic defect, or else he suffered a terrible accident requiring extensive reconstructive surgery followed by lingering disability. In addition, I don’t think he speaks very clearly. Either that or he has a really odd English accent.