Happy Thanksgiving to everyone in the USA who celebrates this holiday and happy Thursday to everyone else. This morning my sweetie-wife and I went to an early morning screening of the latest film set in the Harry Potter universe, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. I am thankful that I did not hold high expectations for this film for it would not have met them.

This is not a bad movie, but nor it is a good one, it is at best middling and a mildly entertaining bit of spectacle. The problems with the film rest primarily with J.K. Rowling who is credited with the script and is a producer as well. The story has a fairly inconsistent tone veering from whimsical fun with silly magical beasts to dark conflicts endangering countless people. it takes a very deft hand to combine such disparate tones and Rowling fails in that task. As I said to my sweetie-wife on the drive home from the theater, ‘Whimsy and the threat of genocide do not belong together.’

This movie also takes quite a bit of time to get going. Oh, events happen right from the start, it doesn’t engage in the mistake of heavy exposition for a beginning, but the actual start of the plot is quite delayed and as such I found myself wondering just why I was watching. The twine plots, whimsical and serious, eventually meld but that unification takes place far too late and without much in the way of emotional stakes for the characters.

And that is the film greatest failing, the lack of deep emotional stakes in the climax. This is a move with lots of plot but very little story. There are hints and set-ups for possible future stories, but I really wanted more than what was delivered on the screen. All the fast paced action and dazzling special effects are hollow without a powerful emotional connection.

For me the film failed though not as badly as other major productions, but still it failed.