Fantastic Beasts And Where To Find Them

This review may contain spoilers!

While an entertaining watch, this film certainly doesn't stand up to the Harry Potter series that precedes it. I would give Fantastic Beasts And Where To Find Them a 6.5/10.

What works in this film is what has always set the Harry Potter series apart, the way these stories capture the sheer wonder of magic and a fantasy world is enchanting. The best aspect of this film is seeing Newt Scamander lead Jacob, Tina and Queenie in a hunt for his magical creatures who are all more engaging and interesting than the last. I also appreciated the great use of comedy in this film, there's some great dialogue between characters especially from Jacob Kowalski. The cinematography looks good, of ten moving around an environment so that the audience can take in every spectacular detail. The special effects are stunning, the CGI creatures look amazing and the magic duels look incredible as well. The score is the perfect blend of nostalgia and original content, when the film opened with Hedwig's Theme I was thrown back to sitting in my lounge watching the first Harry Potter film as a kid.

Johnny Depp, who played Gellert Grindlewald, didn't have much more than a cameo in this film but he has me very excited for the sequels; Depp is a master at delivering some bone-chilling lines and i can already tell he's going to make for a memorable villain. Dan Fogler, who played Jacob Kowalski, is an incredible source of comedic entertainment throughout the feature; Fogler is really the perfect way of recapturing the magic of Harry Potter by portraying a Muggle seeing the wizarding world for the first time. Alison Sudol, who played Queenie Goldstein, is a very alluring character who is both enchanted and enchanting; Sudol and Fogler share some great chemistry and I enjoyed watching their developing relationship.

However the best performance came from Eddie Redmayne, who played Newt Scamander. Redmayne's skittish wizard globetrotter makes for a really interesting protagonist in this film. I appreciated how he didn't really seem to know how best to interact with other people, finding greater ease with communicating with his creatures. There's a gentle compassionate quality to Redmayne's performance, we see that his role cares for all life and he only really engages in action scenes when he's trying to defend others. This is by no means a character who springs into action, rather Newt Scamander is an wizarding animal activist with a heart of gold.

The American magic society is so different and harsher than what we're used to from the Harry Potter universe, unfortunately because this film mainly keeps qualities of wonder and comedy throughout this darker setting just feels jarring. This is most noticeable in the strange anti-magic orphanage storyline happening in the background, it's a plot that feels at odds with the rest of the film and grates against the more interesting aspects of the narrative. Really disappointing is that the best part of the film: Scamander's hunt for his 'fantastic beasts' slowly gets less focus as the narrative tries to push the weaker anti-magic plotline. The pacing is severely affected by the disarray within the narrative, meaning you'll be quite bored by the time the third act finally manages to roll around.

Ezra Miller, who played Credence, is a straight up horrible antagonist in this film; his role seemed to just twitch and cower for most of the time to the point that you didn't really see him as a character so much as a plot twist just waiting to happen. Katherine Waterston, who played Porpentina Goldstein, made for one of the weakest leads of the film; her tendency towards the same bland line delivery means you never really connect with her role. Colin Farrell, who played Percival Graves, is a wasted use of a great actor; Farrell never really stands out as a character and instead gives an admittedly forgettable performance as quite a two-dimensional shady agent character. Ron Perlman, who played Gnarlack, was a very simple portrayal of a shifty criminal character; he's dropped into the plot quite suddenly without being given much depth or dimension to his place in the story. Samantha Morton, who played Mary Lou, is the worst antagonist I've ever seen in a Harry Potter film; this manic Muggle seems so out of place in this film that you start dreading having to watch her scenes. Jon Voight, who played Henry Shaw Sr., is one of the most unnecessary characters of the film; Voight's gruff newspaper editor seems like quite a throw-away role. Carmen Ejogo, who played Seraphina Picquery, Was quite a monotone character who really made very little impression; I'm not really surprised as the British Minister of Magic equivalents have never been wildly memorable either. Jenn Murray, who played Chastity, just did not need to be in the film; she was one member of the anit-magic orphans too many. Ronan Raftery, who played Landon Shaw, was a Muggle with conviction that magic existed; in my eyes there seemed to be too many of these roles for the whole Muggles-being-oblivious-to-magic thing to work. Josh Cowdery, who played Senator Henry Shaw, was really only in this film to be killed off; his political role had little to no impact on the greater story within the film. Faith Wood-Blagrove, who played Modesty, is quite a creepy role with no real depth to her character; despite the film's best efforts it's pretty easy to tell that Modesty isn't going to be the film's final antagonist.