Reviews

I really liked the first Fantastic Beasts movie. It introduced a new point of view from the Harry Potter universe, away from school and towards the wider, fascinating world. Unfortunately, this movie here doesn't continue where the last one left off and stumbles over itself more than it manages to fascinate. The main plot point is the boy Creedence from the first movie. We know he is bearing some kind of powerful magic energy, unfortunately he ran off to Paris, nowhere to be found. Now obviously, many different factions want to find this boy to use him for their own purposes, protect him, or just kill him, including our hero Newt Scarmander. I'm not going to spoil anything about the plot, but the big problem with this movie is that basically everyone gets their own underdeveloped little subplot which just meanders through the movie and for most of the movie you feel like nothing is actually happening (because in fact, nothing is happening). You're watching characters that are not interesting doing things you don't care about and finding out things that are not important and you're constantly wondering what this all has to do with anything. Young Dumbledore shows up and you learn how he is connected to this whole thing - but that's it. He doesn't do anything and his presence has no consequence, he might as well not be in the movie. Of course, what he says will be important for the next movie I guess, but that's the problem. The whole movie is basically a giant buildup...but for what? The next one? There is no real payoff at the end. Overall this movie is boring and irritating and it even fails at what Harry Potter is best - worldbuilding. You don't really learn or see much about the magical life in Paris at all. Oh - and there aren't all that many fantastic beasts either, despite what the title promises.

This movie is a parody of the real-life story of Thomas G. Hornauer, who got quite rich with phone sex hotlines and then decided to open a "spiritual TV channel" to suck up even more money from gullible viewers. His bizarre ramblings became pretty popular in the German corner of the Internet and ultimately inspired the creation of this movie.

Of course, this is complete low-budget trash that for some inconceivable reason some quite famous German actors agreed to star in. It is fun to watch, but you're going to miss out on a lot if you're not familiar with the stuff that inspired it.

Well, we've got a new Harry Potter movie. (Or should we rather call it "Harry Potter universe" movie or something like that?) Anyway, this movie is quite different from the previous HP stories and it's a welcome breath of fresh air. We're going from the pompous and dark atmosphere of Britain and Hogwarts to the bustling and grimy 1920's New York. No more teenage angst and ancient prophecies, just some quirky wizard on the hunt for strange creatures...well, for the most part. I don't wanna say too much about the plot, but it does make for a really fun and creative movie. I think that some aspects should've been developed more, but at least that'll leave something for the die-hard fans to discuss about. Anyway, I'm off now to read my old copy of "Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them".

The star of this movie, Daniel Küblböck, took part in the first ever season of the German version of American Idol. He managed to gain some popularity due to his androgynous look and quirky personality. He later took part in the German version of "I'm a Celebrity...Get Me Out of Here!" and by now has faded into relative obscurity, but not before leaving us this tremendous achievement of bad movie making.

The rough plot of this movie goes like this: Daniel is at the height of his popularity, giving large concerts and receiving dozens of fan letters every day. However, many others hate him and his music. His worst hater is a ridiculously edgy guy called Balthasar, who is planning an assassination together with a teenage couple (Tom and Rike). Meanwhile, Daniel is visited by a mysterious one-armed magician figure (played by the director, Ulli Lommel), who tells him that in order to become a magician himself, there are several tests he will have to pass...

Now, where do we start? The beginning of the movie (and several later scenes) show Daniel performing live, but his horrible singing, dancing and his ridiculous outfits quickly become hard to stomach. Speaking of ridiculous outfits, I should mention that the evil killer Balthasar wears a red leather trench coat and has upside-down crosses branded on the back of his head[!]. Judging from the bad image quality, lighting and constant shaking, the movie seems to have been largely filmed on a hand-held camcorder. Adding to the "charm" of the movie are some of the exciting locations: Küblböck's living room, the forest and meadow next to his house, a concert hall and the small apartment of the murderous conspirators. The production values are roughly comparable to the home movie project of a sixth grader. The true "highlight" of the movie however are the bizarre dialogues and the general ludicrous and nonsensical way the plot goes forward. It's hard to describe and really has to be seen to be believed.

Overall, this might be the worst movie I've ever seen, but I can't say that I haven't been somewhat entertained. If you want to take the dive and watch one of the titans of trash, I think you wouldn't regret it.