Why Did You Like/Dislike Fantastic Beasts?

I agree with most of what the OP said.

Kowalski and Queenie were somehow the stars of this movie. How did that happen?

First of all the beasts were not fantastic, the duck billed platypus was stupid, its attempt at humor lame. The giant bird looked like a four year had drawn it.
Everything else was very very G rated like, very cartoonish. A 200 million dollar budget it should've looked like Avatar.

I was expecting some excitement involving magic, hidden secrets and adventure.
It was more like a boring car chase with slow cars.

4 stars, lets hope the next one is better.

Make no sense mess... pretty movie but so many parts make no sense but just to move the story along in the most dumb ways.

He does not talk when he should talk to explain certain situation, he loses his suitcase and not know if he has the right suitcase when he spot the patypus taking the gold coin. Not just the first time but second time inside the bank which he should already know the briefcase was switch and know how important that suitcase is to him but he gets distracted easier like some simpleton and then outside the bank again the guy took his suitcase by mistake again.

So many silly parts that could have save time, not got misunderstood but to move the story along they make him dumbfounded when he should be talking to explain like when he was in front of the Queen. Another situation like using his wand to capture the creature from the jewelry shop instead of trying to catch it physically and then later he use finally use the wand only when everything is a mess with the police coming then he capture it with his wand.

I can go on but I think you get the picture as I don't want to reveal too much to spoil more for those who have not watched it .. but the more I see it, the story make me more frustrated as it want me to stretch my imagination more then I should as a big fan of magical movies and magical logic. SO it make drama out of nothing to expand the story in such lazy writing style or how the screen writer choose to write it for the movie.

Nice effects and creature but serious lazy writing

I loved it. Throughly. Very excited for more "adult Harry Potter" films in this vein.

I agree that Newt's dialogue was a little hard to discern but I think this was an intentional choice -- he comes off as an Aspie-ish, more-comfortable-with-animals-than-people type, so his delivery was artistically on point. As a general matter, I notice that dialogue in many of today's films is increasingly becoming more difficult to distinguish. Not really sure of the reasons for this unwelcome trend, but there it is.

I did not predict the ending and really, really loved it (probably for that reason).

One of the great things was how they handled the nonmag/muggle intersection with the wizarding world, and I was touched by the emotional depth of that relationship among the main characters, especially the ending.

I was very critical of David Yates on Half-Blood Prince and Deathly Hallows, but he knocked it out of the park here.

Too many cliches.

I loved the beasts and the special effects, and Newt. I liked the Obscurus subplot, even though it did seem a tiny bit out of place. The different magic culture was also interesting to see.

I didn't really like the other characters, except maybe Queenie.
It was weird how they kept focusing on the little girl instead of Credence. Did she have any magic? Or was she just a creepy child?
The execution chamber was also weird.

Overall, I did enjoy the movie and look forward to the sequels!

Neither like or disliked.
Just didn't understand any of it.
Colin Farrell made it bearable.

I disliked all of Newts mumbling. I needed the subtitles on. Overall I quite liked it. I enjoyed that it was a smaller scale story that wasn't about the end of the world. All in all I would say it was better than HP 1,2 and 4.

The thing I disliked the most, as with all Harry Potter movies, is the plot not making any sense. They always have spells and cop-outs that they only use when convenient. Everything seems like it's made up on their knees.