Review- Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them

Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them is the first part of a new five part series based on a 120 page encyclopedia from the Harry Potter universe. It follows New Scamander as he comes to New York with some Fantastic Beasts, loses some of them and then has to work out where to find them. There is more to the plot obviously, it's also a story about people who think witches might be among them and don't like that one bit in a very Crucible way. There's also this bad guy called Grindlewald who has a very distinctive haircut and that will be a problem when it comes to big reveals. Of all the places to go in the Harry Potter universe, I'm not entirely sure why they chose here but they make a story out of the film and it works, even if I feel like saying there's four more coming after this is more than a little bit of a preposterous stretch.

I'll get to acting because it's my favourite bit of the film. This isn't because the film contains real powerhouse performances or anything, they're generally good, it's because of Eddie Redmayne. I don't think I've actually seen him in anything before other than a couple of interviews but he was a fantastic screen presence. The guy was just incredibly likable in every scene, even when it was slow and he was the thing that kept the film going through its slower moments. The other performances are fine with the supporting characters being there to propel the story along with fairly obvious trajectories. The best of the supporting cast are Colin Farrell as a sinister type guy who is kind of cheesy but in a good way and Ezra Miller who plays a creepy kid, adopted by the weird anti-witch lady. His performance is subtle when it needs to be and... isn't when it doesn't have to be.

Something else that this film spends a lot of time on and usually does well is world building. Obviously, this is a world we've already seen somewhat with the previous eight films but being a prequel (of sorts, it does stand alone) there is a lot of new ground to be laid. With the film being in New York in the twenties, I was kind of hoping for a Great Gatsby vibe, maybe a Bugsy Malone type thing and sure, there are speakeasies and sure, there's people using ridiculous twenties speak but it is neither of those things, it's a slightly bland interpretation of the time period. What is not bland whatsoever is the magic angle. The new creatures are really well designed and very interesting and, without spoiling too much, the scenes in Scamander's briefcase are superb. They were easily the best moments of the film and while the rest of the film left me somewhat uninterested, these scenes had me smiling constantly. This is a world that we have already explored and while the exploration of it wasn't perfect, I would be interested to see more, especially if they do end up going to that Gatsby vibe eventually.

Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them is actually alright. I wanted to hate it because I dislike how it's become the global phenomenon it is without being as amazing as people are convinced it is. I know some people love this film and that's fine, I just don't think it is amazing. You can do a lot worse than this and after the disastrous year of franchise movies we've had, we know that to be true. I just think if you're going to go see anything this week, make it Arrival instead. That said, what you have here is a good film and it gets a