There is nothing about this film to like. It was hideously, hideously bad on every conceivable level.

The thing is, I’m perfectly fine with (most of) the Harry Potter books and (most of) the films. They’re kids’ adventures; they require a degree of checking your logic at the door. Magic, wizards, massive plot holes and inconsistencies are part and parcel with the territory. I get that, and for the Harry Potter series, I’d say five or so of the books were decent reads, and five of the eight films were decent watches. The fourth one was actually very good, indeed.

Then this spinoff comes along. And you take the same approach, the same ‘grain of salt’ means by which an adult (much as I am) knows going in that this thing is not aimed at him (M15+ rating not withstanding). There’s serious people at the helm. You know this isn’t going to change the world, but it’ll probably be a fun journey.

But… when you shoot your kiddie spinoff movie in almost total darkness; you make the main villain just a puff of furious digital smoke… when you cannot keep your camera still for a second; when you go for extended periods of time with no dialogue, music or action taking place; when you cast as your leading man a quality actor and then extract perhaps one of the most incomprehensible, hideously misguided performances ever captured on film… when you throw in a piece of stunt casting in the final act which is as grating as it is cynical; when your plot is nonsensical – even for a fantasy film, and your script is the worst kind of hackneyed crap… The list goes on.

It takes forever to get off the ground, and it was a solid hour in before I started thinking, ‘This isn’t slow, it’s just bad.’ And it didn’t improve. By the time the stunt casting (setting up the main villain for the innumerable sequels to come) shows up, a touch of the movie Tourette Syndrome kicked in and I audibly told what was on the screen to piss off. Haven’t done that in a while.

Eddie Redmayne, so very good in The Theory of Everything and even better in The Danish Girl – the dude should be required to give his Oscar back. Stilted, mumbling, bullshit performance. I had trouble understanding maybe 50% of what he was saying. I think it comes down to director David Yates’ choices, and this is the chap who directed four of the Harry Potter films to varying levels of success.

It’s appallingly written, shot in veritable darkness and filled with baffling performances. The sidekick role serves no purpose whatsoever. The female lead is poorly developed, and her flirty psychic sister is even worse. Colin Farrell is in it and barely registers. It’s just utter, utter shit. They say that there’s going to be five of these things in this series, but I’ll not be crossing the road to see another one of them. I’ll audibly boo the next time there’s a trailer for one.

I’m saddened to say – and in equal measure, perfectly at ease with saying – that this is probably the worst film I’ve seen in the last five years.