Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them was released in the U.S. on Nov. 18, 2016 to the happiness of millions of people. It made over $75 million in box office sales, which is less than any other Harry Potter movie but still very impressive.

Going into this movie, I had absolutely no idea what to expect. I’m a huge Harry Potter fan, and I was ecstatic, like everyone else, when it was revealed that we would be getting a new movie to take us back to the wizarding world. However, I had no clue what this movie was about. I’d read J.K. Rowling’s mini-book, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, like any good fan, but that was a textbook with side-notes by Harry Potter and friends. There was no plot, no story; it was just a fun book to read on a lazy Saturday afternoon. How were they going to turn that into a movie? (The first of five, in fact.)

I don’t know why I had my doubts, but J.K. Rowling most certainly delivered. Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them is set in New York City in the 1920s. Magizoologist Newt Scamander (Eddie Redmayne) has recently disembarked from a ship with a suitcase full of magical creatures with the intentions of continuing on to Arizona for reasons later revealed. Unfortunately, things do not go as planned for him. One thing leads to another―a Niffler, a magical creature that looks somewhat like a Platypus with a fondness for expensive items, escapes the suitcase, No-Maj Jacob Kowalski (Dan Fogler) accidentally takes Scamander’s suitcase and releases a few unusual beasts, demoted auror Tina Goldstein (Katherine Waterston) takes Scamander to the Magical Congress of the United States of America (MACUSA) in an attempt to regain her job―and soon Scamander is gallivanting about New York in an attempt to round up his creatures while a deadly force (later revealed to be an Obscurus, a dark force that magical children unintentionally create by suppressing their magical abilities), is out terrorizing No-Majs.

If the previous paragraph seemed confusing, that’s because it is. Watching the movie in theaters for the first time was a little disconcerting, what with all of the spiraling camera shots and the multiple subplots. While I loved the movie very much and I was super excited to return to the world I spent lots of time in as a child, I do feel like it could have been written a little better (for lack of a better term.)

J.K. Rowling made her screenwriting debut with Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. Perhaps it is because she is so used to writing books that she thought she had to cram in 500 pages worth of story into an almost two-and-a-half hour movie. Again, don’t get me wrong, the other-worldly feel was still there, along with quite a few humorous and heartbreaking moments as Rowling is wont to do, but there was so much happening that I had some trouble keeping up. I honestly felt like I needed to watch the movie another three times to be able to coherently write this article. Towards the end of the movie, everything does end up tying together in a nice little bow, it just takes a few side roads to get there.

While the story left something to be desired, the acting most certainly did not. I will admit that I was skeptical when it was announced that Eddie Redmayne would be playing Newt Scamander. (I didn’t like his character, Marius, in Les Miserables, and I can’t get over the fact that his cheeks vibrate when he sings.) However, I was pleasantly surprised at his portrayal of the eccentric wizard in the movie. He seems to really fit in with the 1920s, and he certainly embraced the strange habits that a magizoologist must undertake. (For instance, performing a mating dance to lure an Erumpent, a rhino-like creature, back into his suitcase.) At some points in the movie he looked like he was in pain and very rarely did he make eye-contact with his fellow actors, but other than that I thought that Redmayne was an excellent Newt Scamander. Other notable performances: Dan Fogle as Jacob Kowalski, a clueless No-Maj who gets roped into the wizarding world and offers much comic relief, and Ezra Miller as Credence Barebone, an No-Maj orphan who wants desperately to be a wizard. (He plays creepy very well.) There is also a surprise cameo by everyone’s favorite actor―trust me, you’ll know it when you see it.

All in all, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them is definitely worth the wait (and the suspense.) I can’t say that it is as good as Harry Potter (but was anyone expecting it to be?), but it still satisfied the nine-year old girl in me who wanted terribly to be a part of something magical. I have high hopes for the next four movies, and I do believe that Rowling has helped the world become a little more wonderful.