*Obvious disclaimer: Spoilers ahead*
I’ve never been much of a Potter head. I’ve never read the books or participated in the fandom, but I have seen all of the movies and my friends were super into this premier so I decided to check it out.
Without going into too much detail, I’ve laid out a brief summary of the movie. Fantastic Beasts and Where to find them takes place somewhere between 70 & 100 years before the Harry Potter series. It follows the story of the English wizard Newt Scamander, a collector of fantastical beasts, and his journey to America. When he arrives in New York he accidentally encounters a muggle named Jacob who unintentionally switches briefcases with Newt, creating a series of unfortunate events.
So, from an outsider’s perspective, I thought the movie was pretty easy to follow. It did take me a minute to realize when and where the movie was supposed to be set, but after that the story line was pretty manageable while also being entertaining. For the most part the movie was a lot more comical than the rest of the Harry Potter movies and it definitely wasn’t as intensely ominous. Of course, it being a movie set in the wizarding world, there had to be a bad guy, who was Gellert Grindelwald. This Grindelwald character didn’t seem as scary as Voldemort, but he served the job of ‘bad guy’. When they unmasked Grindelwald, the character looked like David Bowie which kind of ruined the evil vibe for me because I couldn’t help but laugh.
Overall, it was a good movie, but definitely different and not as dark as the Harry Potter series. There were a lot of ‘awww’ moments and a bit of the ‘will they, won’t they’ action going on, along with the comedy.
Rating: 8/10