Spiritual successor to the Harry Potter series, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them was everything that I’ve been waiting for since 2011, when Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 2 was released.  As the Potter themed Warner Brothers symbol flashed on the screen and the iconic theme played it felt like I had been holding my breath for five years.

Beyond all that was there to marvel at and appreciate I will say that the film felt a little packed with three over laying plot lines all held crammed into a two hour film but I’ll get to my criticisms in a minute.

First off I would love to honor nearly every single cast member, especially Eddie Redmayne. No one else could have done as good a job as Newt Scamander than Redmayne. He absolutely perfected the quirky and cute manner of Scamander that is so hard to capture.

Though it pains me to say this I must admit that Ezra Miller lacked as his character, Credence. He didn’t make me feel empathy for his character, which was the point, but rather annoyed because of how self pitying Miller portrayed him. It’s a shame that he had to get that horrible haircut for a character he didn’t even play well.

What the film really succeeds in is aesthetics. The whole 1920s New York meets wizardry theme is done perfectly. It feels and looks as if The Great Gatsby had taken place in the wizarding world. For someone like me who is sucker for this kind of thing I was so pleased that WB was able to pull it off as this was one of my biggest concerns.

Okay now onto my main grievance with the movie. Three heavy plot lines…in 120 minutes…What possessed them to think this was a good idea? It felt like they were trying shove every genre of movie into one like “here’s a good laugh or two, some romance, Oh and some shocking tragedy for good measure.” It was all a little too much to be done in a limited time frame. To be diplomatic though I will let this slide because I know the studio intends on making Fantastic Beasts into a five part saga and I imagine they will build off of the foreshortened plot lines of the first film.

Any Harry Potter fan looking to revive some long last magic should go see Fantastic Beasts immediately. It does such a spectacular job at giving the same magical feeling as Harry Potter but having enough individuality to be its own entity. The film wasn’t constantly trying to remind you that it’s a part of the Potter franchise but rather show that it could be its own thing and still give the familiar feeling that has been forgotten since the release of Deathly Hallows.