Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them
While I continue to be ticked off at J. K. Rowling for her complete mishandling of Magic in North America, my position on this particular film has softened compared to Dr. Strange due to the prominent roles of women and minorities, including two Jewish main characters and a Black President of Macusa (The Magical Congress of the United States of America). So while I did not set it high on my to-watch list, rosinavs was more interested in it than Arrival, so we went to see it.
Wow. Man, is Eddie Redmayne a good actor. I hated Newt Scamander and Eddie positively shat on every scene he was in. The character was obnoxious, self-centered, awkward to the point of ridiculousness, and not only bad at people, but pretty terrible with the animals, too. It's kind of like the screenwriters saw The Imitation Game and took it upon themselves to write an even more unlikeable Autistic-coded British Intellectual character. Newt gets into a number of poorly conceived, tedious, repetitive comedic sequences trying to capture some of the creatures that escaped from his case and I look forward to being able to fast-forward through them.
The rest of the main characters, however, are awesome, the plot is directly connected to the mid-20th Century detailed in the Potterverse backstory without feeling predetermined, and the visuals are stunning.
I would not say that it's a must-see, but if you've been jonesing for Pottermore and don't mind Rowling's codescending views on Native Americans (who make no appearance whatsoever in the film) and Americans in general, it might be fun to watch.
Wow. Man, is Eddie Redmayne a good actor. I hated Newt Scamander and Eddie positively shat on every scene he was in. The character was obnoxious, self-centered, awkward to the point of ridiculousness, and not only bad at people, but pretty terrible with the animals, too. It's kind of like the screenwriters saw The Imitation Game and took it upon themselves to write an even more unlikeable Autistic-coded British Intellectual character. Newt gets into a number of poorly conceived, tedious, repetitive comedic sequences trying to capture some of the creatures that escaped from his case and I look forward to being able to fast-forward through them.
The rest of the main characters, however, are awesome, the plot is directly connected to the mid-20th Century detailed in the Potterverse backstory without feeling predetermined, and the visuals are stunning.
I would not say that it's a must-see, but if you've been jonesing for Pottermore and don't mind Rowling's codescending views on Native Americans (who make no appearance whatsoever in the film) and Americans in general, it might be fun to watch.