Rowling
needs more money?!
Skip
past this first paragraph if you dont want to read the clichéd
“reviewer rambles about a personal experience that loosely ties
into the subject” portion - soz, couldn't help myself:
The
fifth 'Harry Potter' book was the first I've ever read to myself.
Before then, one of my parents read them all to me. My mum read the
whole of 'Chamber of Secrets' to me in one day, sitting in the back
garden. I really liked them as a kid, they were engaging and fairly
easy to follow without being patronising. 'Order of the Phoenix' came
out in 2003, when I was seven. At the time of writing, I'm twenty
one. I'm not sure if I could be considered wholly adult (I'm writing
this from a makeshift bed made of a stack of patio cushions with a
sheet on top, in a nook of a spare room of a friend's house, where
they keep the board games, shoes, camping supplies, and bike
equipment), but recently I dipped into 'Order of the Phoenix' again
just to see how it reads after all this time and, well, fourteen
years of other books has changed my tastes. It seems bland and simply
written to me now. There are lots of adjectives and the dialogue felt
simple and clumsy. It's almost as if it was written for kids.
This
film feels just like that. I don't think the target audience has
changed, though the individuals have (not counting the fanatical fan
base of the series, which is comparable in intensity to the 'Star
Wars' and Tolkein ones, maybe even Trekkies). It was cute and fun,
and they tied in the Americans and the historical setting in well
with the universe, but it was for kids.
The
story was pretty simple, and was really just a setup for later films.
The main focus was on the novelty of the creatures and in the
exploration of this new facet of the wizarding world. I'm not sure I
like the idea of wizards living in the Americas - I always thought of
them more as old worlders, and I'd rather have been a film set in
wizarding East Asia or Sub-Saharan Africa, but I guess that's too
inaccessible for the American market.
The
way they ended up having it was fine though. It feels like they might
have the wizard relationship with the muggels reflect the burgeoning
civil rights movement of later years. I think that would probably
feel a bit heavy handed, but it could work.
I
enjoyed the characters and plot, though it was all rather too peppy
to really be my thing. It's a bit too busy, both in number of
sub-plots and in animated assets in the frame (think 'Star Wars'
prequels). I'm not in love, but it was a decent revival.
Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them: 52.3