Review: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (2016)

Does anyone else think perfume adverts are more than a little ridiculous? Perhaps now 4DX screens are becoming a thing they have a place in the world, but has anyone really ever paid much attention to these ads? You’re probably actually wondering what the hell perfume has to do with Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. 

Well, at the cinema the other night, right before the featured trailers aired, an advert of sorts was played for what looked like a period drama movie or TV show starring Domhnall Gleeson (AKA General Hux, AKA my favourite grumpy space ginger). I got so excited I did a little dance in my seat, until I realised it was an advert for Burberry perfume. What. The. Frick?! NOT COOL Burberry, not cool. Although I might buy your aftershave for my husband now...damnit. It works.

Anyway! Harry Potter fans will be aware of the book on every Hogwarts first year’s required reading list, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. Who’d have thought all these years later it would be adapted into not one, but 5 movies?! I wish I could go back and tell 12 year old me. This movie is the story of the author of said book, Newt Scamander (Eddie Redmayne) who travels to New York in 1926 to release one of his beasts back into the wild where he/she belongs. Whilst there, several creatures (including the ever adorable Niffler) escape from Newt’s magical suitcase.

Newt gets himself into trouble for involving a no-maj (American muggle) called Kowalski (Dan Fogler) and then not wiping his memory, so gets himself caught by disgraced Auror Tina (Katherine Waterson). Amidst all this, a dark wizard called Gellert Grindelwald is on the loose, an anti-magic cult is throwing their weight around, and a rather dapper Colin Farrell is hunting down a talented young witch. Got it? I sure all hell don’t, there’s so much going on!

Let me first say though how wonderful it is to return to the wizarding world of Harry Potter. The sheer excitement at hearing that familiar music with the Warner Brothers logo was enough to make me cry (for the second or third time that night, after so many Christmas adverts), and there are plenty of references for the hardcore fans to spot. Eddie Redmayne is the perfect choice for Newt, confident in his abilities and passionate in his subject, but terribly awkward at the same time. It’s the first time I’ve ever really loved him on screen.

The beasts themselves are indeed fantastic. The Niffler is the real show stealer, but all the creatures we are shown either bring laughs or a feeling of awe. It’s a lot of CGI to have thrown around, but it works. Almost the entire supporting cast were new to me, but their characters were played so well and even ones that have a high risk of being annoying (I’m looking at you, Queenie) were actually incredibly likeable.

Where this movie falls down is largely the messy plot. Considering this franchise is going to be dragged out into 5 movies, there was too much packed into the first installment. I’m sure I’m not alone when I say I would have been happy for the entire first movie to be an introduction to Newt and Co, chasing down the beasts across New York. Save the dark wizard stuff for movie number 2! Who is the target audience, anyway? This was far too dark for young children, but the plot was far too obvious for the older fans. It’s a shame.

I’ll always be happy for more Harry Potter movies, but I’d have liked them to go down the Star Wars route with a collection of one offs instead. Let’s have Fantastic Beasts, then how about a movie for Hagrid and how he got kicked out of Hogwarts? A Marauder’s movie would be amazing too! There are so many stories that could be expanded, without the need of dragging them out.

Review: The Lobster (2015)

It’s times like this that I love co-running a movie blog. I’ve watched so many movies over the last (almost) 2 years that would have fell completely off my radar would it not be for the little blogging community that I’m part of here. I love reading reviews of movies I’ve seen, learning about the perspective of others is fascinating, but I also love reading reviews for movies I’ve never even heard of. Seriously, if I read a review singing the praises of a movie I’ve never heard before, I’ll do everything within my power to watch it that very night. And that is how I found myself watching The Lobster.  I really struggled to make myself want to watch this, I sensed it was outside of my comfort zone but I was determined to watch it anyway, especially with such a high review from Allie.

The Lobster (2015) has one of the craziest plots I’ve ever heard. I tried to explain it (badly) to Jenna before Christmas but with more time to think I might be able to make it sound more coherent. Set in a dystopian future, single people are arrested and taken to ‘The Hotel’, where they stay for 45 days with the goal of finding a new partner. Should they succeed, they are free to leave, but if they fail, they are transformed into an animal of their choice and sent away.

I’m not kidding, that really is the plot! The movie starts with Colin Farrell’s character David, arriving at the hotel after recently losing his wife. With him is his brother, a dog, whose stay at The Hotel clearly didn’t go very well. It takes a while to get accustomed to this movie, it really throws you into the deep end. Everything looks a little dull, and everyone speaks in an almost monotone way that makes the humour that much more deadpan.  The deadpan voiceovers really confused me, for the first half of the movie I thought it was terrible acting rather than a conscious choice. Once I got used to it though I realised it was part of the overall effect.

Throughout the guests 45-day stay, they are forced to attend dances just as awkward as those you attended as a child, and guests are also brought onto stage to talk about themselves, in order to find common ground with the others. They can also extend their stay by taking part in an almost Hunger Games style activity of shooting down escapees with a tranquilizer gun. Each escapee, or ‘loner’ they shoot down is worth an extra day, and not surprisingly, there are a few veterans at The Hotel who may never leave!

I definitely preferred the first half of the movie to the second half, the second half felt a bit more chaotic which was logical based on the change of pace in the movie but I could barely keep up to be honest.  The first half however, I loved.  The bond developed between David (Colin Farrell), the lisping man (John C. Reilly) and the limping man (Ben Whishaw) was hilarious (although not sure if it was supposed to be!!).  Did anyone else notice that no one else in the film had a name other than David?!  I thought about it and checked IMDB and sure enough, not a single name!
 

I loved how this movie brought to light all the crazy conceptions we as a society have about relationships. Things like the fact that we feel like we need to find common ground with someone in order to be compatible, all the way to thinking that having a child is the way to solve problems within a relationship, suddenly seem that more absurd here. I’m a big fan of movies that get me thinking long after the credits have rolled, and The Lobster is one for sure.

My only real complaint was that by the second half of the movie, I felt it had all got much too clever for me, and I started to lose interest. Not in the story itself, but just the ongoings on the screen. I later read a full synopsis of what happened though, and I’m keen to watch this again now I fully understand it.  I'm not sure I would sit through this again to be honest.

This might be the craziest movie I’ve ever watched, and I can’t recommend it highly enough! It was truly insane but completely different to anything I have ever seen before.

 

Mini Reviews: Saving Mr Banks (2013), Cake (2014) & Ex Machina (2015)

I can’t quite believe Saving Mr Banks is 2 years old now, it feels like I’ve been putting off watching it for a couple of months, not years! I remember little of the Mary Poppins story, in fact I can only recall a couple of the songs, and maybe that’s why I put this film off for so long. I’m glad I gave it a shot though, as this was a beautiful story.

Emma Thompson does a fantastic job at portraying this frustrating character who you struggle to warm to at first, but by the credits roll I had tears in my eyes. The whole cast made this a wonderful film to watch, and I can’t recommend it highly enough.

I’m a huge fan of Jennifer Aniston and films that tackle depression have always interested me, which I realise sounds quite morbid! Therefore, I thought Cake would be a film I would really enjoy. Cake is a dark story of a woman who becomes obsessed with the suicide of a friend in her support group for chronic pain, who also tries to deals with her own severe issues.

Maybe watching this in chunks throughout my lunch breaks didn’t help, but I found the story so hard to understand, I had to read half on an IMDB synopsis to work out what was going on. Once I worked it out it was more enjoyable, but still fell flat for me.

When the posters and trailers came out for Ex Machina came out, I wasn’t bothered in the slightest. I didn’t even notice it come and go from my local cinema. However, anyone I knew who went to see it or watched the DVD said how brilliant it was, and the got my curiosity. It’s hard to even explain the plot of Ex Machina without ruining the experience, but I would recommend it to anyone.

It starts of as a family friendly, futuristic film and out of nowhere, takes a very dark turn, and rapidly turns into adult-only territory. I haven’t seen anything like it, and although I don’t think a re-watch will give the same impact, it was a brilliant experience first-time.