Fantastic Beasts And Where To Find Them - Akio Cashcow!

Let's start this review off with a little confession: I've never been that big into Harry Potter. That's not to say I'm not a fan. Quite the opposite. I've read the books, saw the movies, and I admire that it's opened an entire generation to the world of reading. The world is a better place because of JK Rowling's creation and she deserves every bit of praise she gets and then some. It was just never an integral part of shaping my adolescence like it was for so many people of my generation. What can I say? The Simpsons and Pokemon got to me first. But franchise building and shared continuity is the name of the game in Hollywood now (a trend that Harry Potter is partially responsible for), and since Warner Bros needs something to fall back on in case the DC Extended Universe doesn't pan out, diving back into the Harry Potter universe seems like a safe bet since it was basically money printing license for a solid decade. Which brings us to Fantastic Beasts And Where To Find Them. With a screenplay by Rowling herself and longtime Potter director David Yates behind the chair, this is the first installment where fans can experience it with fresh eyes without obsessively nitpicking the differences from the source material. 

Fantastic Beasts takes place in the 1920's and follows Newt Scamander (Eddie Redmayne), a magizoologist working on the titular almanac in hopes of educating the wizarding world about some of its more misunderstood fauna. On an expdepition to New York, he accidentally gets his suitcase where he keeps a whole menagerie of endangered magical creatures swapped with that of an oafish no-maj (the American word for muggle) who lets several of the beasts loose. With the help of Tina Goldstein (Katherine Waterston), a disgraced magical law enforcer, her flirtatious mind reading sister Queenie (Alison Sudol) and Jacob Kowalski (Dan Fogler), the no-maj responsible for unleashing them, Newt must race to recapture the escaped creatures before they wreak havoc on an unsuspecting New York City.

If there's any franchise out there that's just begging to be further explored beyond its relatively narrow scope, it's Harry Potter. I mean it's great to follow a boy who finds out he's an all-powerful wizard, goes to school to hone his newfound powers, deal with the pressures of being the chosen one, and be the only important player in the most unbalanced sport in existence (Sorry guys, Quidditch is a bullshit sport and I will defend that statement to the grave.), but we never see much of the wizarding world is like beyond the halls of Hogwarts, or England for that matter. Fantastic Beasts does answer a lot of these questions by simply transplanting the setting and time period to a time and place where wizards are no less secretive about their world and abilities but are less shy about living under the muggles' noses. But when you set your story in certain places and time periods, you kind of have to address the issues of the time, in this case, fear, intolerance and bigotry. The main reason that wizards are so intent on keeping hidden is because they have a long history of persecution at the hands of muggles and their discovery could lead to war. This idea of staying in the shadows doesn't sit well with Grindelwald, a dark wizard with Magneto-esque ambitions of not only letting their world be known, but feared. In fact, the main subplot building up to the final climax involves the leader of an anti-wizard hate group who spends her days preaching fire and brimstone and passing out propoganda to people on street corners as well as the orphans she looks after. (This character is an obvious dig at the religious groups that protested Rowling's work at the height of its popularity. Word to the wise: never piss off a writer.) One of those orphans (Ezra Miller) who gets regular beatings from his caretaker also becomes of great interest to an investigator (Colin Farrell) with suspicious motives. No bonus points for guessing who the bad guy really is.

Because they're so intent on keeping things a secret, American wizards have outlawed the transport of magical creatures, which makes Newt's mission especially problematic. The creatures he must capture range from the adorable (like this cute echidna/platypus hybrid with an affinity for hoarding treasure) to the majestic (like this giant thunderbird that Newt is trying to return to Arizona) to the downright lethal (like the Obscurus, which I'm not even going to describe here). I absolutely love some of the creature designs in this movie. I'm sure the more devout fans that scour Pottermore recognized all these beasts right away, but I was awed by how creative their designs were, even if half of them just look like mashups of two existing animals. The special effects do a fantastic job of bringing them to life, but the rest of the post-production work was a little sloppy, particularly the editing. There are shots that cram so much detail into one frame, but the camera either sweeps around to much or cuts away too fast for the audience to take it all in.

But the creatures aren't the only thing holding this movie up. As anyone who's seen or read Harry Potter can attest to, JK Rowling has a real knack for creating memorable characters, and Fantastic Beasts has them in spades. Only this time around... let's just say that she's been watching a lot of Doctor Who. Newt Scamander bares such a striking resemblence to the Doctor that I have to wonder how much of his character was inspiration and how much was plagiarism. He's a tweedy, scatterbrained gentleman whose job seems modest on the outside but really holds a high level of danger, his base of operation is disguised as an everyday object that's much larger on the inside, he has a revolving door of companions helping him on his adventures, and Eddie Redmayne plays him with all the awkward British charm of Matt Smith by way of David Attenborough. Maybe it's just because I was never big on Eddie Redmayne as an actor, but I'm sure the more hardcore fans will get more out of his performance than I did. Thankfully he doesn't have to carry the whole movie himself, as the supporting cast get plenty of moments to shine. I really dug Katherine Waterston's no-nonsense approach to Tina Goldstein, Alison Sudol brings all the quirky charm to Queenie that Evanna Lynch brought to Luna Lovegood, and she has amazing chemistry with Dan Fogler, who makes Kowalski into a great audience surrogate. But the actor who truly brings the house down is Ezra Miller. I won't say what it is that really made him stand out, but all I have to say is... DAMN, son!

If this all just sounds like a bunch of great ideas that don't gel into a whole, that's because it kind of is, but also kind of isn't. While the script is a solid story with character arcs and trajectory and all that important stuff, a lot of the plot points are just foreshadowing for future installments. Pretty much everything involving Grindelwald could easily have a large neon sign blinking above that reads “REMEMBER THIS FOR LATER!” But since Warner Bros has already auctioned four sequels,n we'll just have to wait to see if it pays off. It's not as bad or blatant as the sequel baiting in Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice, but it also doesn't distract from the story at hand either. There are also a few callbacks to the original series that don't serve much purpose but to remind you that this is the Harry Potter world and to make the fangirls squeal. (The girl sitting next to me in the theater actually started kicking her feet in glee when one of the characters mentioned Dumbledore.) There's also a character from Newt's past who shares the last name of a rather notorious character, which seems innocuous to casual viewers but anyone familiar with the lore can probably suss out how their relationship goes just from that bit of information alone. Like I said, franchise building is the name of the game.

All in all, Fantastic Beasts And Where To Find Them is a pretty solid movie in its own rights, but feels a little incomplete since it's just one piece of a big puzzle. Longtime Harry Potter fans are definitely get more out of it than I did, but maybe my opinion will change depending on how the other movies turn out. But for now I'd say it stands on its own merits, but just barely.

7/10