Fantastic Beasts And Where To Find Them - In the words of the ninth doctor

Fantastic Beasts and where to find them, is directed by David Yates, who's made every single Harry Potter film in the franchise, ever since Order of the Phoenix, and the stars Eddie Redmayne as Newt Scamander, a guy who is looking through old New York City, 70 years before Harry Potter ever read his book in school, for various creatures that have escaped his suitcase. He goes around collecting feared creatures, who a lot of people want exterminated immediately, because he feels that if he can take care of them and nurture them, he can create a relationship with these creatures. Thus, showing other people in the magic community at this time, some of these creatures really don't mean them any harm. So not only is Newt trying to go around New York City, and find all the creatures that have escaped his case, he's also trying his best to make sure that no one finds out what's really going on.

Now I'm a big Harry Potter fan, I enjoy all of the movies, some are better than others, so I was really excited for this movie. It's also written by JK Rowling, so this is the first time that someone who is a hardcore Harry Potter fan, can actually go to the film to experience things for the very first time, without actually knowing what's going to happen. Also, Harry Potter fans can go to this movie and not be wondering what they got right, and what they got wrong, when they're comparing it to the book, because this is her original screenplay, and once again, she has shown herself to be one of the most imaginative writers working today.

I really enjoyed Fantastic Beasts. I so admire her imaginative qualities as a writer, this world has so many cool things in it that make the child inside me get really excited. I love all the creature designs, everything looks so cool, just like all the other Harry Potter films. I want to own or at least be friends at least half of the creatures in this film, but pushing my fandom of the Harry Potter universe aside, what I really liked about this movie was the way it's constructed. David Yates once again proves that he's a director who understands this world, which is why I'm glad he signed onto the sequel to this film, and what he brings to this universe is a great sense of how to direct really epic action sequences and special effects. But he's also really good at slowly building and setting up characters, and making us appreciate this world without overly relying on our knowledge of the Harry Potter universe, or our love Harry Potter universe, and that's probably my number one favourite thing about this movie.

Unlike almost every prequel ever made, Fantastic Beasts and where to find them does not rely on our fandom of other films, to make us appreciate this one. Pretty much every remake, reboot, spin-off, sequel, prequel whatever, they all have ties to the other things that we like, and some of them do it way too much. But the entire creative team behind this movie have made a movie that stands on its own. You don't even have to have seen the Harry Potter films to understand and appreciate this movie, it can be a world on its own without having to even experience those other films, and that's something to be praised.

They didn't rely on tons of fan-service, and references and little visual cues to make us go ‘oh look that's that's great great grandfather of this character’, like we don't need that in this movie, because they set up a good movie on its own. Eddie Redmayne is fantastic as Newt, he's vulnerable, he's very likeable and he's an extremely accessible character, but also one that is good at hiding past pain without making it seem clichéd. And Dan Fogler as Kowalski, this normal no-mag, or muggle, who really wants to set up a bakery, who gets caught up in all this, he's the audience character, you know he's the guy who's constantly like ‘hey what's going on?’ And they explain things to him, but they're really explaining it to us, but he's that character. He was so good, he really added a lot to this movie a lot of really good humour while also being the audience character, he was the comic relief as well, and he never got annoying he never felt like a sidekick, and that's something I was really glad. Because as soon as he was like on the mission with Newt, I was like ‘Oh shit this could oh… ok’ and by the end of the movie that character was actually one of the most emotional elements of the film, that actually did bring a tear to my eye, and I was sitting there like ‘Am I kind of tearing up? Shit’.

I also really like Katherine Waterson as Tina, she's investigating the things that are going on in New York City, a lot of things are scaring people, weird sites, strange things are happening, and I'm not going to get too much into that, I think you should experience that aspect of the film without me even saying anything. What I will say is that it's awesome that's a lot of fun, it's the type of film that allows you to get excited about future instalments, without feeling like a setup movie. My two least favourite Harry Potter films, even though I like them were, the first two, because largely they did feel kind of like set up movies, those are my biggest flaws of the first two Harry Potter films. Fantastic Beasts does set up a new world that we can appreciate that we've already been to, but this is a previous time, but it doesn't feel like it's just a setup movie it feels like it stands on its own as an extremely entertaining film, and I loved it.

As for issues, I really only have a couple. In the earlier parts of the movie, there are two editing / CGI mistakes I noticed. The very first shot that we see, a wide shot the Statue of Liberty, if you look to the right of the frame, I noticed that the American flag jumped unnaturally, and I think that was actually a CGI mistake that's a nitpick. But since this is the first time I saw this movie, and I noticed that right off the bat, I think other people probably will too. There's also a really strange editing choice where two characters in the beginning are walking past each other, and the shots jump extremely fast to Katherine Waterson, and then back to Eddie Redmayne, and I was like ‘Wow, that's messy editing. There are some narratively rocky points in the first act were there are some scenes that feel kind of like they're just entertaining scenes that will be great as a scene that you watch again, but don't necessarily feel like they fit in this story. And just like with any film like this that requires a lot of explaining, there are some heavy exposition scenes, mostly given to Dan Fogler’s character, so that we as an audience can understand things and sometimes it does feel like school, and that's really it.

I had a blast with Fantastic Beasts. I think people are really going to enjoy this movie, especially if you're Harry Potter fans, but even if you're not, I think it's a fun and accessible movie that's going to get people excited.

Grade - A-

This is the ninth film in the Harry Potter universe, and they're still good…that's amazing.

Doctor Stange - Marvel gives us some Doctor Strange(Love)

Doctor Strange is directed by Scott Derrickson and stars Benedict Cumberbatch as Stephen Strange, a very successful but arrogant doctor who after a debilitating car accident, can no longer use his hands this is life now… that would suck. And when Western medicine fails him, he turns to Eastern medicine, and discovers this monastery of sorts, in which he learns about magic, sorcery and many different dimensions he never knew existed. As well as a mystical war that is raging, and he tries to find his place in between these two warring things.

My best way to describe this movie, I gotta say, I got to give the writers of this movie major props, because Marvel has once again introduced a very strange (pun intended) and obscure comic book character into the MCU, and made it work. I thought Thor and Asgard was going to be hard, I thought Ant-Man was going to be weird. One of the reasons this character works so well is because of Benedict Cumberbatch, in fact it is the biggest reason. He really gives a lot to this role, he has the perfect level of arrogance, comedy and confusion, especially confusion. But what I loved about his character was how passionate he was about bettering himself. He’s someone who takes his intellect very seriously, arrogantly so, but at the same time, he's also someone who just wants to learn everything he can to get better at whatever he wants to do. It’s one of the reasons why his character was such a successful physician, and it's one of the reasons he becomes such a successful sorcerer, because he wants to better himself in every way he can, and so that aspect of the character I really latched onto, and really appreciated.

What really blew me away in this movie where the visuals, this was a very remarkable 3-D experience. I do actually recommend that you see in 3-D, normally that's not something that I focus on, but the 3-D definitely added something to these city bending, world moving sequences that really made my jaw drop. The action sequences in this film are fantastic, except for one thing, I don't necessarily think Scott Derrickson handled some of the hand-to-hand combat sequences as effectively as he could have it's not shaky-cam, there was just a level of intensity missing from the simpler action sequences, that were given to the incredible visual effects heavy sequences. Which by the way, I say visual effects heavy, but I never really looked at something and I was like ‘man that’s such a computer image, I don’t buy any of this for a second’. These are class-A visual effects, some of the best I've ever seen in a superhero movie. And yes it is going to draw comparisons to Inception and The Matrix, that's inevitable but Doctor Strange as a comic, has been around for a while and this aspect of that world has been in those comics for a while but it's clearly drawing inspiration from Inception. People jumping on walls and the gravity-defying elements, it's just that there's a lot more of it in this film.

I loved Chiwetel Ejiofor as Mordo, he was a lot of fun. Tilda Swinton was very good as the Ancient One I thought she was great in the movie; it would have been nice to see that character portrayed by someone who is actually the ethnicity of the character in the comic I’m not gonna sit here and complain about it because she was really good in the movie. And one of my favourite actors; Mads Mickelson, oh my god I loved him, he was so good in this movie. His character could have been given a little more though, I would have appreciated a little more depth behind him. Another thing I really appreciated about this movie is it does feel very different from the other films in the MCU. Certain elements of the third act, it's extremely different from the way most of these big superhero extravaganza of visual effects beam in the sky, people blow up everything movies now. I love superheroes, I love comic books, I love comic book movies, but it was just nice to see one that fits into the world that has a similar warm colour tones and tongue-in-cheek humour and visual effects, and amazing action sequences. But it was nice to see one that genuinely felt of its own world.

As for negatives, I feel that the first act is a little bit clunky, in setting up the character and getting to the place where he eventually meets the Ancient One. The second she touches his forehead, from that moment on, I was in, I was locked into the movie, it was a really fun from there, but getting to that felt a little blocky, just a little bit, the pacing could have been a lot better. There's some humour also that doesn't always work. I would say it's about 70:30 for me in regards to humour and jokes that hit and it does kind of. Though some of his training aspects, you feel like there should be a little bit more, there are comparisons to be made to Batman Begins. Because with Bruce Wayne, that movie travels to this faraway land and learns all these mystical magical things. And with this one, it's a lot more literal in regards to the magic, but in Batman Begins, it was just paced better, and you felt that world building, and this movie, it kind of wants to get to Doctor Strange getting his red cape, The Levitation Cloak and everything being really cool and awesome. And it's cool to see everything happen, and you're excited that it's getting to that point, but I do feel like his training was rushed just a little bit.

The movie also suffers from a lot of exposition, and that's one of the biggest flaws. I would say of this movie, is the need to explain so much to us because it's such a weird different world from the other MCU films, that there are many scenes in which our hero is standing there listening to people explaining things to him, and we're gonna need some of that, and I wouldn't say that it wasn't interesting, i would say that it was mostly always fun and compelling to watch and learn about this world, it just does get really bogged down on exposition sometimes. As for visual effects in this movie, everything was mind-blowingly great, except for one visual effects character that I was just kinda like ‘That's a cartoon! I don't believe that's real!’ Also, I really liked Rachel McAdams in this movie, she plays the love interest of sorts of Stephen Strange, they have some off and on’s together, but I liked how he had to keep going back to her at certain points for help, it added a lot of humour to the movie, that mostly worked very well.

In the end Doctor Strange has incredible visual effects, a very cool hero, a very fun backstory that does get bogged down in a lot of exposition, mostly working humour, and a character that I can't wait to see more of. It’s not one of the best in the MCU, I wouldn't say it's one the worst, it's not as good as Deadpool and especially Civil War, but I had a lot of fun with this movie and I love Benedict Cumberbatch as this character and I'm excited to see him in other films.

Grade - B+

The post-credit scenes also set up the MCU fairly nicely