Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them – 2016

It’s easy to believe that Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them would be up to par with JK Rowlings famous Harry Potter saga. This is far from the truth though. At least it is in my mind. I wasn’t even aware that it was a JK Rowlings story until the end credits. Of course I should have made the connection when Hogwarts are mentioned, but I didn’t. It’s actually referenced several times but I just didn’t see it. And, as I said, this is not up to the standards of Harry Potter. Not story-wise and not visual-wise. It looks good and the creatures are nicely animated but there is still a lack of the final touch.

The story is messy and is about this young wizard who comes to New York to find fantastic beasts. They’re not bad in his eyes and only catches them to protect them since they are about to be killed and attacked by the wizards council or what ever the name is. In this tale humans and magical wizards live in the same world but the humans aren’t aware of the existence om wizards. Much like the Harry Potter universe of course. Same, but different. There is also a political game going on. And everything escalates when the young wizard turns up. The animals, or creatures that he keeps in his bag are accused of killing a man. This is not true of course but a nice scape goat.

It is also a love story. Aren’t all these flicks love stories these days? There is a man and a woman. She is magical and he is not. Typical! Will everything turn out good at the end? well, I don’t think it’s much of a spoiler to claim that. I wouldn’t even have to see the flick to understand that. It’s ok as a couple of hours of entertainment but not much more. There is far to little content and far too much exterior for it to be any good in my mind. If the exterior was top-notch and extra vagrant I would consider it but it’s not. Fantastic Beasts and where to find them are ok for the time being but nothing to reprise.