Fantastic Creatures (2024) – review and opinion about the film [UIP]. When you need a friend

A twelve-year-old girl has to live with her grandmother for a while while her father is in the hospital. Bored, she discovers the existence of imaginary friends, Blue and Blossom, who are taken care of by crazy Calvin.

I have two sins to confess. First of all: Today I was supposed to write about the Polish Super Sisters, but when I noticed how the first reviews seemed to confirm my doubts about the quality of our super-superhero production, I somehow didn’t want to waste 100 minutes of my life on screen. Fortunately, I also saw that “Fantasticbeings”, which opens in theaters only on Friday, is already naturally available to the general public at my cinema, So I decided to take a chance in this direction. I write “I will take a risk” because this is my second sin.

After the first posters, I had absolutely no confidence in this project. I thought Reynolds was working for his kids, and the monsters were too cute, for it to work. But before the screening, I started to know this and that about the movie I was going to watch. How surprised I was when I learned that John Krasinski (who also appears here in a small but important role) is sitting in the director’s chair, and among the voices of imaginary friends we will hear giants like Steve Carell, Phoebe Waller-Bridge, Matt Damon, Maya Rudolph, or Krasinski’s wife, Emily Blunt. (She’s definitely gone through the casting process, just like the rest of them.) Krasinski and Reynolds describe their film as a “live-action Pixar film.” And you know what? And there is something to that.

Fantastic Creatures (2024) – review and opinion about the film [UIP]. Nice idea, a little half-baked

What we’re dealing with here is a simple deconstruction of the essence of imaginary friends – who they are, where they come from, and why we need them. There are no sophisticated concepts or carefully thought-out premise, but Krasinski presents viewers with a very clever story that can really touch their hearts in just a few moments, and perhaps even surprise the younger portion of the audience. As an old horse and fan of family films, I started to understand pretty quickly where the story was going, but it certainly didn’t spoil the enjoyment of watching it in any way. – In fact, I waited for more specific moments, and experienced more of what was already very emotional in itself.

The problem – to some extent – lies in the middle of the film. The opening is fairly strong – it introduces the individual characters well, we understand what the problem is, and we quickly start to sympathize with everyone (we won’t see any classic antagonist here). But the finale gradually gains a powerful pace. Everything starts to fall into place, changes, fear, another twist, and secrets are revealed one by one. New feelings overwhelm us practically from minute to minute. Meanwhile, the middle… The middle is world-building, and an exploration of the concept of imaginary friends. The bottom line is that the concept here is so superficial that it can be summarized in one or two sentences. We meet several fairly interesting new characters that we know almost nothing about, the surprising friendship that serendipitously develops between Bea (Cailey Fleming) and Ben (Alan Kim) never develops in any way, and attempts to set him up as an imaginary friend take a long time. A very long time – especially since we and the main character know very well that he must be a dragon! If Krasinski wasn’t going to write a classic hero’s journey, he should have thought the main concept better to extract more engaging material from it.

Fantastic Creatures (2024) – review and opinion about the film [UIP]. You have to imagine the actors

In terms of acting, it’s difficult to comment after it’s been shown in our cinemas, because all the nuances of the work of Reynolds, Krasinski and the young Fleming were covered by our voice actors. I’m not a fan of dubbing live action movies. I think it’s so weird when I see Ryan Reynolds and I hear… I don’t even know who he is, to be honest. I can’t find this information on Dubbingpedia or Filmweb yet. In the end, the Polish version of the film is not bad at all! You can feel Blue’s simple joy, Cal’s exhaustion, and Bea’s fear and excitement. One just wishes to see and hear the voice used by the original actors to deliver the most emotional lines, because their faces regularly display a full range of unspeakable emotions. However, when I look at Blue’s big, purple body, it hurts me that he was Karyl in the original.

Visually, it’s better than you might expect. The upcoming imaginary friends may not wow you with their very fancy character designs (heh), but you must admit that they are made very convincingly. Blue’s fur responds well to movement, and the scene in which she cuddles with Bea suggests that they had something physical on set that you could melt your entire body into, because it looks too good for pure simulation. A nice touch is the way Blossom is designed, suggesting that her original friend is someone from the past, perhaps from the 1940s for example. The director clearly thought this through carefully. I was somewhat amused while watching Granny (Fiona Shaw) live in perhaps the most charming and beautiful old building in the entire city, but ultimately even that element was somehow driven by Krasinski – and it’s hard to disagree that it’s him who makes the film seem more mystical.

Ultimately, “Fantastic Creatures” is a film that can truly be called a “live-action Pixar film.” Not everything goes well – especially in the middle of the film – but in the end Krasinski delivers a charming and warm film, full of emotions so strong and clear that the viewer literally feels better after watching it. Like after a cute encounter with a good childhood friend that you haven’t seen in a very long time.