Where's Eddie?

So, I went to see Fantastic Beasts last evening.  As someone who is, for the most part, totally ignorant of the Harry Potter Universe, I sat down in my seat with a little trepidation, only a little, though.  Since it was Tuesday night my ticket only cost $5, and my popcorn and soft drink only came to $4.24, not a bit investment.  Colin Farrell plays the villain... quite well, this former pretty boy is aging rather well.  Eddie Redmayne is the hero and I suspect his genes are not as good as Collin's, but then I'm not an Eddie Redmayne fan.  He is not a ginger for the ages.
Anyway, there's this evil thing killing people in New York and Collin tries to put the blame on Eddie's beasts, and, well the plot is rather standard.  Katherine Waterston and Fine Frenzy (bad stage name?) are very good.  The CGI effects are... spectacular.  This movie looks simply amazing.  But then there's Eddie.  No doubt he's trying.  I mean the guy can act, but he's no Daniel Radcliffe, who, even in his flops is more than just a screen presence.

And then, right at the end, that horse's ass Johnny Depp shows up.  Evidently his brief cameo is supposed to be built upon in the next 3 or 4 sequels.  Holy Shit.  And, evidently, his casting is also quite controversial because everybody who is anybody knows Depp is box office poison.  What a terrible shame.  This franchise looked a bit promising.

Looky looky, Now you see me

That's right, I went to the movies last evening.  "Now You See Me 2" was on the bill.  Hhhmmm, what to say?  Overall I enjoyed it almost as much as I liked the first film in this franchise.  Daniel Radcliffe is in this one and most of the time he's barefooted (for all you Harry Potter foot fetishists out there).  He does a decent job, as does most of the cast.  Where as all of the Four Horsemen get to do their only little solo magic shtick, Lizzy Caplan, as their newest member, gets stuck with this crappy dove trick which is so crappy there's no reveal.  That's right.  All of the other tricks get explained, not hers.  Not good.  And the big reveal at the end?  It goes on for way too long.  When Dave Franco begins to explain away the secrets to "the people of the world," he's not really speaking to them, he's speaking to the movie audience because "the people of the world" have no idea what has been transpiring.  Oh, and did I say, it goes on way too long: five minutes detailing everything that happened, maybe?
Still, I thought that overall the movie was very entertaining, easily worth the price of the ticket.

Here are some quick takeaways:

Either Morgan Freeman is really, really tall, or the rest of the cast is really, really small.

If you ever wanted to see Woody Harrelson with curly hair, this is you chance.

Mark Ruffalo shows you how to make a teary-eyed scene look cheesy.

Jesse Eisenberg actually looks..., well, cute.

The cast, while being racially diverse, is overly dominated by men.

Did I mention Jesse Eisenberg?

The first one made over $375 million worldwide, and Part 2 is over $90 million in it's second week.  What does that mean?  I understand they're already working on Part 3, that's what that means.  Will I go see it?  Probably.