Characters:
In the lead role, we don't have Harry Potter, but a man by
the name of Newt Scamander (Eddie Redmayne).
Based on his previous bodies of work I wasn't sure if I'd like him as
the main character, but overall I thought he did an ok job. Jacob (Dan Fogler), baking entrepreneur,
stole the show for me especially at the end.
I would have appreciated a little more dialogue and banter between the
two of them to enhance their budding friendship, but it never fully got there. Newt did admit to Jacob that most people
didn't like him and it's fairly obvious why because of Newt's eccentric
ways. I understood that his behavior was
intended for his character, but it didn't do him any favors for the audience to
care about him. I wanted to care. I wanted to care about his beasts. His primary relationship and concern was with
his beasts, to be sure, but the movie didn't do anything to make you care about
them save for the twiglike creature that could pick locks.
As for the two main females, Tina and Queenie, sadly they
were only integral to the plot in the simplest terms. Tina (Katherine Waterston) didn't really pick
a stance on how to play her role and just came off weak and disjointed. Queenie (Alison Sudol), while very one
dimensional, was surprisingly crucial at two specific moments in the film. It made me appreciate her as a character even
though I didn't fully understand what she did for a living and what purpose she
served in the overall new yet familiar Harry Potter universe. Overall, they felt under-used and valued and
when it came to the scene where Tina's mind was going to be erased or
something, I didn't feel vested.
The Barebones were the epitome of creepy and I know I should
care about the abuse of Credence (Ezra Miller), but I couldn't get there because
the characters were so weird and uninteresting.
Maybe it was the haircut, but I had no sympathy towards any of the
children, especially since they appeared to be against magic users and I am a
fan of magic users, especially the ones that do good.
As for Graves (Colin Farrell), the President (Carmen Ejogo),
and the rest of the MACUSA, none of them showed any warmth or caring and they
were simply operating on their own unknown agenda that was kept from the
audience until the final act when it was too late to sympathize or commiserate. Up until the final act their decisions and
actions were confusing and misguided.
Some breadcrumbs and explanations along the way would have been nice.
Story:
Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them conjures an image in
my mind of thestrals, dragons, centaurs, trolls and other creatures previously
introduced in the Harry Potter universe.
So why should I care about them and why would I want to find them?
So far, J.K. Rowling has done a successful job in making me
care about an owl, a phoenix, a hippogriff, and even a giant spider when it
passed away. Sadly, this movie doesn't
really make me care about any of Newt's beasts, and most of the creatures are
just a means to an end. So to what
end? Is that at least interesting?
Well the premise of the movie is that "something"
is terrorizing 1920s New York. Things
are even more dark and grim than the already dark and grim set pieces. Towards the end of the second act, it is
finally brought to light that MAYBE something from Newt's case is the cause of
the terror.
So what is the movie doing in the first act concerning the
beasts? Well it's telling you were to
find them - they're all in Newt's briefcase.
The first act also name drops Grindelwald via a newspaper and maybe he's
mentioned one other time and that's it. The
movie is afraid to mention his name because ultimately it's revealed that he's
behind the attack.
So did Grindelwald somehow lure Newt to New York as part of
his plan? No. It just seems to be by happenstance.
Strip away the beasts, and what you really have is a story
about an Obscurus. What is an
Obscurus? After all the character-lack-of-development
and the childlike method of catching escaped beasts, we finally learn that an
Obscurus is created when a child is forced to suppress his/her magical
abilities. Keeping it all bottled up
inside will create a powerful dark force within the child. At a certain age, I believe it's said to be
10 years old or younger, the Obscurus will explode onto the scene killing the child and creating havoc. It is revealed that Newt found an Obscurus in
an 8 year old in his travels and he was able to extract it, but the child died
regardless. The Obscurus is shown in a
frozen floating bubble in a specific part of his briefcase where all his beasts
are kept.
At the end, we learn that the child named Credence, believed
to be a squib, is so powerful that he was able to contain his Obscurus well
beyond the age of 10. Graves, who has
random contact with this boy, doesn't realize until it's too late and Credence
takes the form of the Obscurus and back and forth while wreaking havoc all over
Manhattan.
It's also revealed that Tina was demoted as an Auror as she
helped Credence once and she had an obsession with the 2nd Salem-ers. Guess they should have listened to her in the
first place right? Anyway, she's able to
calm the boy down and he gets destroyed by the MACUSA who all look the same in
their brown leather coats and hats.
Graves is revealed to actually be Grindelwald in disguise and he's taken
away.
Again, in the third act it's revealed that Grindlewald's
plan all along was to use the Obscurus to inform the No-Maj/Muggle world of the
existence of magic and in the end his plan succeeded. So how to fix it? Well Newt references something from earlier
where he has a potion or poison from one of his creatures that will act as an
Obliviate spell. He uses his one giant
hawk like beast to spread the poison into the atmosphere which dispenses it via
a rain storm. As everyone's mind gets
wiped (not sure what happens to those not touched by the rain), the MACUSA
fixes the broken buildings.
I didn’t know this at the time, but read online that a sliver
of Credence survived so see ya in the sequel I guess.
Newt has an awkward goodbye with Tina and Jacob who was Obliviated with
the rest of Manhattan is able to open his bakery thanks to an anonymous
donation from Newt. Queenie enters the
shop, Jacob freezes, rubs the back of his neck and smiles. We get a happy ending, but the ride there
wasn’t the best execution. With a muddy
story and lackluster characters, this isn’t a great start to a new series of
stories. I do want more and hopefully we’ll
get more about Grindelwald, his connection to Dumbledore, which will hopefully
enrich the Harry Potter universe with interesting characters and stories.
