Review: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them

A wizard named Newt Scamander (Eddie Redmayne) travels to the U.S. in 1926 in order to research all of the magical creatures indigenous to America. After a mishap with one of the magical creatures residing in his suitcase getting loose, Scamander unintentionally allows a muggle (called a ‘no-mag’ in America) to witness the magical creature, an aspiring baker named Jacob (Dan Fogler). Worse, the two men mix suitcases, and Jacob inadvertently lets some of Scamander’s creatures loose. Scamander is eventually grabbed by Tina (Katherine Waterston) an agent Magical Congress of the United States of America, who brings Scamander in to her office for illegal importation of magical creatures. Meanwhile, a Senator is killed by what is believed to be some kind of magical entity. Scamander’s creatures are an obvious target by authorities, but he’s convinced a different, darker magical force is responsible. Colin Farrell plays Percival Graves, Tina’s superior at the Magical Congress, Alison Sudol is Tina’s pixie-like witch sister Queenie, Samantha Morton and Ezra Miller play the rather beastly Mary Lou and her magically gifted but horribly mistreated foster son Credence, whilst Jon Voight turns up as a politically ambitious newspaper tycoon.

A little context: I’m not exactly a Harry Potter fan, so I didn’t know that this 2016 David Yates (director of most of the latter “Harry Potter” films) film was connected to the franchise until after the film’s release. I also happen to believe that the often-maligned first two “Harry Potter” films are the series’ best, though Yates’ “Order of the Phoenix” was a pretty good entry, too. Point is, I’m no aficionado, haven’t read the J.K. Rowling books, but I’m mildly appreciative of the world, so far as the films go. So what did I make of this film based not on a novel, but basically a screenplay by Rowling (though it did rather confusingly get published and sold like a novel)? Well, it started well, but overall if it were a “Harry Potter” film, it’d fall somewhere in the middle of the pack, possibly on the lower end of that.

The film gets off to a helluva start, almost “Ghostbusters”-esque (crossed with Peter Jackson’s underrated horror-comedy “The Frighteners”), and Eddie Redmayne couldn’t be more perfectly cast. In fact, several of the casting choices are good: Dan Fogler has never been better, Alison Sudol is a revelation in her too few scenes, Ron Perlman is fun playing a seedy elf bartender (animated to even look a bit like him), and Colin Farrell gives a good performance too, even if his character’s role in the film is revealed a bit too early. Ezra Miller is terrific too, though his character seems like it’d be a better fit in the world of “Spider-Man” than J.K. Rowling. The relationship between him and Farrell is among the most interesting things in the entire film. There’s a lot going on there, some of it more apparent at first glance than others. The yank accents by some of the clearly British members of the cast (Samantha Morton in particular) could’ve used some work, but this seemed like fun and I was kind of thinking if it kept things up, it’d probably be better than any of the “Harry Potter” films. It was fun and interesting, despite some surprisingly dodgy FX work that seemed very 2004 to me. The production design is tops, however.

For a while it’s interesting to see an American interpretation of the same basic two-tribe world of “Harry Potter”, with mostly just linguistic changes, and a police-centric worldview rather than a private school-ish worldview of the “Harry Potter” films. Unfortunately, after a while the film gets bogged down in what is frankly not a very interesting central plot, and I think the mystery (and the film itself) could’ve benefitted from being more tightly concealed. I also felt that the film ends up rendering its chief villain little more than a Scooby-Doo villain, which is a shame, given the character is initially fascinating. Also not helping things is the very amateurish Katherine Waterston, who has zero presence or charisma whatsoever (Her father Sam’s a dreary actor, too so perhaps it’s a hereditary problem). She’s dull, and sadly in too much of the film for it not to be an issue. Everyone else pretty much works, she’s the one real dud (Jon Voight barely gets a look-in, but that’s not a fault of the actor). The other problem is that while it was initially fun to see an Americanised off-shoot of a familiar world, after a certain point Rowling’s plan here becomes apparent. This is clearly an attempt by Rowling to make money spawning an American “Harry Potter” franchise. The fact that Rowling also produced the film says a lot to me.

An initially promising, but ultimately uneven and obvious attempt by Rowling to capitalise off the success of her earlier franchise by giving us an American off-shoot of the same kind of thing. Some of it is interesting and most of the acting is solid, but in the end the plot is a bit weak and the intentions clearly monetary-focussed. Nice try, J.K. Nice try, but this is only so-so. 

Rating: C+