(This review may contain spoilers).
Having enjoyed the Harry Potter movies… and seeing there was a midnight showing of this movie… I decided I wanted to go and see it.
I thought the movie was particularly good when it came to the visuals. The world inside Newt’s suitcase was particularly engaging and it was especially good to be able to see something of the differences in the wizarding cultures.
I did feel the movie was a bit lacking in plot development. I liked Newt, to an extent, and I really liked Kowalski. I even liked Tina and her sister, even though I thought Tina made quite a few mistakes. I was able to empathise more with her… and also more with Kowalski than Newt. Although I liked Newt, he was a little harder to get a read on.
I did think the movie spent more time on the visuals than on developing the storyline. While it was good to see that each of the ‘beasts’ had its own distinctive personality, I felt the plot involving the wizarding community seemed a bit tacked on.
I also felt there was a real lack of foreshadowing in this movie. There were quite a few things shown at the end that didn’t make a whole lot of sense.
I did enjoy Queenie and Kowalski’s interactions. I thought they were both sweet in their own way and even though Kowalski struggled at first, it was really good to see him start to take everything in stride.
I did feel a lot of sympathy for Credence, but considerably less so for his mother. I would have liked some more details about Modesty’s background, as I really didn’t know what to make of her.
The strongest element of this movie was definitely the visual aspect. I think the movie could have been made better by utilising more foreshadowing… but I did feel the ending let it down. While I am going to be watching the movie again with my niece, I don’t intend to buy it on DVD… even though I will probably watch the next movies in the franchise.
Ink of Blood 