Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them Review — a return to Potter’s world
Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them isn’t a Harry Potter film. And that’s a good thing. Despite being directed by David Yates — who helmed the last four films in the series: the Order of the Phoenix, the Half Blood Prince and the Deathly Hallows parts one and two — and being very much based in the same universe, this film has a different feel to it rather than merely seeming like a poor quality knock-off, like the three Star Wars prequels seemed to George Lucas’s original trilogy. It succeeds in doing this for two main reasons: by swapping the present day for a magic imbued 1926, and by moving its location away from Hogwarts and magical Britain to New York City and a witchcraft and wizard filled America governed by the country’s equivalent to the Ministry of Magic, MACUSA.
Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them is based on the book by Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling which purports to be Harry Potter’s textbook of magical creatures written by the fictional character Newt Scamander. The film follows Newt (Eddie Redmayne) as he arrives in the Big Apple, ostensibly with the goal of purchasing some new creatures to add to his collection which he keeps in a TARDIS-like suitcase.
But when some of his magical creatures escape their confines, he is arrested by Porpentina Goldstein (Katherine Waterston), a witch seemingly working as a MACUSA aurer. But as the duo begin to search the streets of NYC for his lost beasts, a plot is unearthed which might pit America’s witches and wizards against the nation’s no-majs (the American word for Muggles).
Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them boasts an excellent cast and brings the same magic to the film that Yates brought to the last four Hogwarts-based films. It has an immediately recognisable score to seasoned Potter fans — albeit with a 1920s twist — and its array of magical creatures are a visual delight to all our inner children. While it is not exactly the tale of the boy wizard battling for the good of magic kind against the forces of He Who Must Not Be Named, it is great to be back in his world.
