Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them is the beginning of a new era of magic taking place before the adventures of Harry Potter. This is the first of five films written by the ever so talented J.K Rowling, who we all knew couldn’t step away from the Wizarding Universe for too long. This time around, the hero of our new journey is Newt Scamander, a wizard who specializes in the care of magical beasts. His story begins in New York, and the events that take place will eventually lead to a one of the biggest battles in the wizarding world. Let’s see how this new beginning fares out.
Positives:
Eddie Redmayne as Newt Scamander:
Let’s get this out of the way first. Eddie Redmayne was born for this part. Not only does his eccentricity and mumbling, shy mannerisms are perfect to his character, but he does it so effortlessly to the point where he is simply charming and it makes us all forget the horrendous performance he gave in films like Jupiter Ascending. Perhaps what’s most impressive about Redmayne in this picture is that he never demands for his presence to be known. He’s calm, subtle, and quirky and it’s a terrific performance.
The Supporting Cast:
The two best characters in this film are Queenie Goldstein and Jacob Kowalsky. Their chemistry is terrific as it is charming, and the performances given by Alison Sudol and Dan Fogler are delightful together and they provide the heart and the humor in the film.
Production Design and Visual Effects:
Every Potter universe film has a special appeal and look, with so much dedication into the details of each environments that seperate the real world from the magic world. Everything is so beautiful to look at and you will truly feel as if you’re part of this world.
The Beasts:
The beasts are fascinating to look at as are their abilities and background information. They are special iterations of pre-exisiting animals with moderations here and there. Some of these beasts, which includes a greedy platypus like animal, steal the show.
Negatives:
Not enough Beasts:
For a film called Fantastic Beasts, it would have been nice if more time was dedicated to the actual creatures, but the film almost steers away from this concept to focus on another, deriving from the narrative.
The Subplot:
Although this subplot provides an interesting beginning for the next four films, the way this was executed sort of dragged the film, with not much payoff.
Final Grade: B+