Zimena

I've finally decided that I need to see the Fantastic Beasts movies. I have an HBO Max account via my cousin, and they're all on there, so it's just a matter of me making time for them. I'm also trying to watch movies a bit more often than I used to, so maybe I can actually manage to see all of these? We'll see how that goes.

Some notes, though:

• HP = books, in my mind. In a sense, the movies based on the books never became part of the HP universe in my head, and FB feels even more like a separate thing, due to the different time period and obviously mostly different character cast. I did smile at the small mention of Albus Dumbledore, though.

• One nice fact first: Newt is quite adorable; more so than I had expected. It's mostly about his expressive face and eyes, though, not so much the looks on their own.

• Overall, the movie feels similar to some other movies with a fantasy/magic/non-realistic theme. I watched that Willy Wonka musical movie a couple of months back, and this feels exactly the same, only with HP elements. It also has elements in common with those Marvel superhero movies, or so it seems to me.

• As for what sort of similarities I noticed, there's the way the main character arrives at the beginning of the movie and then leaves for elsewhere/back to where they came from at the end. Also, the "cause some chaos that needs to be resolved, then spend the end part of the movie to wrap up any important personal relationships" plotline. And characters are generally empty and hollow, with little reason to care for anyone except (maybe) the main one(s). Oh, and the visually appealing, but very fast-paced fight scenes where you just have to accept that this looks cool, but you're not actually supposed to be able to follow or believe in the fighting. And of course the fake comedy that gets too much focus (the niffler in this case).

• Okay, I'll admit something: Since the days of getting the first mentions of Grindelwald in the HP books, I always wanted to know more about him. By the time we finally got more info, I was no longer into the books in the same way anymore (I only read books 5-7 once each), so I don't remember the details about him from the books anymore either. But still, the Grindelwald in this movie was... underwhelming, to say the least. Yes, his "using people only for as long as they're useful to him" behaviour feels right, but his three seconds on screen when his identity was revealed was basically NOTHING. I mean, we are talking about the most famous dark wizard of his time, and they show us all these newspaper headlines about him from early on, only to do the reveal in such a bland way? Not to mention, I had always imagined him to be gorgeous as far as looks go, and he isn't, not in any sense of the word. That last bit might be just me making unfounded mental pictures, though, and no movie star can ever live up to those :)

• Generally speaking, the characters are uninteresting and forgettable, to the point where I didn't even react to things I was obviously supposed to have some sort of emotional response to. Credence getting killed (?), Mr. Kowalski walking out into the obliterating rain, Tina getting her Auror position back... I was probably supposed to feel more about those things than I did.

• Also, if a movie includes a character that gets beaten up regularly, at least show me more than a bloodied hand, yes? Especially when there's a belt near the same scene.

• This all sounds like I didn't enjoy the movie at all, but that's not true. I enjoyed it in the sense that I had fun during those two hours I watched it, and I'll happily watch more from the same verse. I just struggled to really connect with it emotionally?

• I loved the Occamy (occamies?) so much. That whole scene where it expanded to fill all the available space, and then could be trapped with a teapot was so beautifully done. And I liked Frank the Thunderbird, too - the scene where Newt kinda hugs him was another favourite moment of mine.

• I also liked the whole magical suitcase thing - how there's basically a whole world inside Newt's suitcase, and also how he had made it "muggle proof", too.

My rating: 3/5 stars.