FANTASATIC BEASTS and WHERE TO FIND THEM   2.3***

       Let me say up front that this is not a bad movie. But I notice a lot of Potter-fans are looking at this movie through rose-colored glasses, and are unable to see its obvious flaws, and there are flaws.

.I'm not going to compare the film to its  Harry Potter predecessors, because that's ultimately unfair. This was a new thing.. After all, this film takes place 70 years before Harry Potter entered Hogwarts.. By the way J.K. Rowling  makes this her screen writing debut which in my opinion was a mistake. She should stick to books !! The script felt too basic and unimaginative and was unable to capture the charm and whimsy of her book.  .

Our new wizard team is comprised of  Eddie Redmayne, Katherine Waterson, Dan Fogler, and Alison Sudol. I'm not sure if it was because the youth and innocence is no longer there (like with the original team at Hogwarts), but I didn't care for the team. I didn't find anything compelling or charismatic about this particular group. Unfortunately, Redmayne gets lost in his obscure quirkiness, and Colin Farrell's character was underused.

But let’s look at some of the good things. This film tells the story of an English wizard who travels to New York with a suitcase full of magical creatures. The creatures get loose, and he has to recapture all of them  before they create citywide panic and destruction. The characters are fun, the visuals are impressive( although it is overloaded with CGI which is not up to par). And the Potter atmosphere of whimsy is all over this film. I also liked how the music of the movie starts with the soft Potter-theme, and then immediately abandons it for the rest of the film, and sticks with its own new theme music. There's plenty of references to Potter things for fans to enjoy, but you do not need to be a Potter fan to understand what is going on in the film. This movie can very much stand on its own.

But now for more bad. The movie seems to forget the primary plot for more than half of its running time. For most of the movie we follow the main character in his quest to retrieve from all over New York his “Fantastic Beasts”  which is fun, but has very little to do with the main plot. It seems as if the movie suddenly remembers that it has a villain (who is only briefly referred to  with quick flashes to newspaper headlines) and it forgets that it still has to build towards a finale. Out of nowhere the final act is suddenly dropped into the movie. That is a bit sloppy and causes confusion about what the heck is going on.,  Technically, the movie is poorly edited  which is why some scenes are hard to follow.  

 That said, I was still marginally entertained. But the film critic in me feels that this movie should have been a whole lot better.  

Clark