Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (2016)

The critic praises it as a spellbinding, monsterific marathon full of wonder, wit, and a strong foundation for the franchise, highlighting the CGI beasts and imaginative details.

The critic praises the film's design, comedy, story and morality tale, highlighting Eddie Redmayne's performance as Newt and the fun with the beasts. The world of Harry Potter feels just right without Harry.

The critic finds this a wonderfully enjoyable adventure and early Christmas treat from the Potter universe, with a rich, baroque world and strong performances especially from Eddie Redmayne as the diffident Newt Scamander.

The critic praises the immersive script, inventive world, strong performances especially Redmayne, Sudol and Fogler, and the timely allegory. Calls it enormously entertaining with great characters and impressive effects.

The film is praised as a spectacular feat of world-building that turns out to be the most unexpectedly relevant blockbuster of 2016, with its immersive 1920s New York setting and magical elements.

The critic credits Rowling's invention and the glorious beasts but notes structural problems with the creatures as a sideshow and excessive action sequences. It succeeds at world-building with visual panache but is busy, leaving hope for stronger sequels.

The critic calls it a solid extension of the franchise that starts slowly but delivers spectacle and emotion in the darker parts, with strong craft but some placeholder feel.

The film is far from perfect but action-packed and splendid-looking, with strong invention in its effects and world-building that invites viewers in effectively. It is less successful with its character-bonding elements and backstory, which sometimes feel checklist-like.

The movie marks a welcome change from the cloistered settings of the Potter franchise and offers more opportunity for the supernatural to knock against the humdrum. The subway can be scarier than a castle.

The critic says it doesn’t quite enchant like the best Potter movies but there are enough thrills and genuine chills to satisfy. It is an exceedingly solid franchise-opener that builds a new world with bridges to the Potterverse.

The film does double-duty as an imagination-tickling fantasy adventure and a deeply troubled commentary on tolerance, fear, and bigotry. It amplifies both the strengths and weaknesses of Rowling’s storytelling approach while establishing a foundation for future installments.

The film opens a new subdivision in the wizarding world in 1926 New York, where dark forces cut swaths of destruction. It features whimsically entertaining creatures but adults that are less engaging and a protagonist who feels fundamentally generic.

The critic sees it as overlong with two-dimensional characters and lacking genuine magic or wonder, a disappointment compared to the original Harry Potter films.

It is a lively, fast-paced adventure that balances high-spirited whimsy and darkly brooding atmosphere. Yet it is a busy, proficient, uninspired movie soliciting brand loyalty more than wonderment.

The critic finds it a fiddly, ambitious but awkward start to the prequels, spectacular yet with grating characters and lacking narrative drive from the source book.

The film exists resolutely outside of salience and doggedly within the comfort of escapism, too timid to serve as a respectable time-killer. Director David Yates is incapable of mining dramatic ironies or finessing nuance from the material.

The film combines enthralling visuals with surprising emotional heft and is more enchanting to the inner kid than the Potter films in some ways. It singles out the buoyant central quartet of characters and the wonderful life given to the creatures, especially the Niffler.

The critic praises the film's delightful creatures and visual storytelling as a successful adaptation of a textbook into an adventure that balances fantasy with real-world darkness. They single out the beasts for their whimsical charm and the way they drive the story's joy amid darker themes.

It is a success that is thrilling, stunning, warm and witty, a welcome return to the intricately drawn universe. The critic singles out JK Rowling’s screenplay for deftly mixing child-friendly slapstick with relevant politics and the gorgeous visuals of MACUSA and Newt’s briefcase.

The film is an ambitious and entertaining extension of the wizarding world that succeeds in bewitching audiences despite some stumbles and an overabundance of plot threads. It singles out the charming central quartet, especially Dan Fogler’s Jacob and Alison Sudol’s Queenie, along with the imaginative world-building inside Newt’s briefcase.

The critic sees it as a fine movie and incredible blueprint for expanding the Potterverse, praising its sense of discovery and immersive world-building through CGI and lore details. They note flaws in plotting and underdeveloped elements but highlight the joy of exploring new aspects of the wizarding world.

The film is engaging with mightily impressive visual effects and some breathtaking, immersive set-pieces, but it lacks the sense of adventure, a tangible antagonist, and enough comedic light relief found in the Harry Potter films.

The critic finds the film visually impressive with detailed sets and inventive creatures but criticizes its lack of cohesion, franchise predictability, and missing emotional depth or wit compared to the Harry Potter films. He praises the design and the central performance but notes it feels overstuffed and not quite balanced.

The review finds the film a marvelous theme park with dense world-building and spectacle but criticizes it as an adequate film lacking narrative depth, nuanced characters, and meaningful ideas, with Rowling's script failing to match the visual thrills.