Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them
A new saga begins
The year is 2016 and we have had eight Harry Potter movies, two spin-off books (Quidditch Through the Ages and Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them) and a play (Harry Potter and the Cursed Child). Warner Brothers (and maybe J.K. Rowling) can’t seem to let go of the magic and cash cow that is Harry Potter and so not only was a park within-a-park created (Hogsmeade — Universal Orlando park-within-a-park creating a virtual Harry Potter world of rides, shops & dining), a new series was announced based on the book Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them.
And lets face it, the appeal for the magic that J.K Rowling introduced us to is still very strong and I believe that knowing this is what drove her to write the screenplay for these movies. As time goes on, I’m sure more details will be released as to the reason (and the story) behind it. For now though, let’s dive into the latest release from the magical series.
Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them has been called a prequel to the Harry Potter movies and books. I am not sure that I agree with this term. From my understanding of a prequel, it is meant to be story that tells of what came before, a story meant to detail the early lives of characters that we have come to know and love (or hate, or couldn’t care less about) from subsequent stories and we are then able to understand why they are the way they are.
Being that Fantastic Beasts will only have a handful of characters from the “Potterverse”, I’d say that it should be called a spin-off of the original movies/books and not a prequel and I’ll tell you why.
Synopsis
Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them is a tale set 70 years before the events that occur in the Harry Potter series (books and subsequent films) and follows Newt Scamander (Eddie Redmayne) a magizoologist who has come to New York with a case full of magical creatures and finds himself in the middle of a not so subtle conflict between the non magic folks (called No-maj’s) and the Wizarding community who have been forced to go into hiding to avoid being persecuted (or worse killed). He eventually finds himself at the center of this conflict as some of his beasts escape their confinement and begin to cause chaos even as a dark force wrecks havoc upon New York.
It is directed by David Yates who directed the last four Harry Potter movies and you can see that he has a full grasp of this world by now.
Cast
As earlier mentioned, Eddie Redmayne plays the titular character and to be honest, I don’t know why the movie title is centered around his upcoming books as that book details the care of the magical creatures and are not based on his adventures in New York or elsewhere. Maybe in the subsequent movies, this will makes sense but it feels to me that the movie could have been called anything and the story would still be the same. Anyway Newt is an odd fellow. He seems more at home with his creatures than with humans and this shows.
He’s competent enough and is a sweet fellow and you will like his character but in my opinion, the rest of the cast are far more memorable than he is. I won’t say that he was miscast, I’ll just say that right now, his character isn’t a very interesting one although his job is an amazing one and he is incredibly capable.
This brings me to Colin Farrell’s character. He is brilliant and by far my best character in this film. It’s hard not to love his character. I can’t say too much about his role to avoid spoiling the movie but let’s just say that Percival Graves gave this movie what it needed and “somehow”, I hope we get to see more of this character in subsequent movies. For those who have seen the movie or are yet to, my putting that word in quotation marks will make sense (I hope).
Did I also mention how dashing he looks?
Alison Sudol plays Queenie Goldstein. Another lovely character this movie introduced to us. She has a power that is used in such a clever way that I could watch just scenes of her alone and I would be happy. When she is first introduced, she comes off as a sweet innocent damsel that I thought would become the damsel-in-distress but alas this is not the case and that in itself was brilliant! It felt like her character was setup to throw the audience off what she could and would eventually do and this paid off in the end.
Just like her face and her attitude, she has an even bigger heart and she isn’t afraid to run headlong into danger to save those she cares about.
It also stars Katherine Waterson as Porpentina Goldstein, Dan Fogler as Jacob Kowalski, Ezra Miller as Credence etcetera.
The movie in itself had a few pacing issues and there were times when it slows down almost to a crawl and these moments make the movie not quite reach the heights that is should have. I feel there were scenes that could have been cut out entirely and others that could have been made shorter to make for a much tighter movie. Other moments; particularly those that focus on the wand duels remind us why we love Harry Potter so much and every scene that involves wands and magic made me smile and I felt like I had returned home after a long holiday.
I also liked the way the movie ended. It’s really refreshing to see another movie that isn’t about the end of the world and also doesn’t leave any scar upon the world in itself. The characters that truly matter learn and grow from all of the events in this movie. While for some there might be no consequence, for others the consequences are only just beginning to take their true form.
If this wasn’t a movie set in the Wizarding World, odds are that it would have flown under the radar as nothing really happens here that hasn’t been done before. As it is however, it belongs to a world that has captivated the imagination of millions of people and as long as the movies are made with that in mind and keep up the level of acting and keep churning out good stories, just like Star Wars, the fans will turn out in droves.
It should be noted though that the film isn’t really kind to first timers and throws out terms and uses spells that might not make sense to those who have never read a Harry Potter book or seen any of the movies (yes I know that might sound weird but I am sure there are loads of people who have never seen Star Wars too or The Lord of the Rings for that matter). Such persons will find scenes where characters apparate and disapparate strange. Although odds are that they will still find it cool because let’s face it, the way the spells are used are pretty sweet.
At the end of the day even with its flaws, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them is a delightful movie and a very welcome return to The Wizarding World created by J.K Rowling. I don’t know how the next film tends to proceed from this one as this felt like a complete movie on its own. Whatever it is though, I’m in for the ride down to the finish line and one can only hope that just like the Harry Potter movies, they keep getting better and better and carve a niche for themselves that comes close to rivaling some of the best franchises in the movie market today.
