Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them
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Yes, Mr. Kowalski. For they're currently in alien terrain surrounded by millions of the most vicious creatures on the planet... Humans.
~ Newt Scamander
quick fox: B+ | Copper
winding dragon
In a course I took on Tolkien, we read the author’s brilliant essay “On Faerie Stories.” He has a fascinating commentary on the fantasy genre, stating: “Enchantment produces a Secondary World into which both designer and spectator can enter, to the satisfaction of their senses while they are inside, but in its purity it is artistic in desire and purpose.”
Which is a fancy way to say that a good fantasy makes the audience want to live in that world.
In Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, it achieves its purpose of establishing a world different than what we have already encountered in Harry Potter, but stays true to the same enchantment that got us pulled into the universe.
Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them takes a step back in time and across the pond to New York City in 1926. Newt Scamander (Eddie Redmayne), an avid Magizoologist, is in the midst of compiling a book collection about magical creatures for the Ministry of Magic. His travels have taken him to the United States—suitcase in hand—in order to return the Thunderbird (imagine a Zapados from Pokémon) back to Arizona. But a series of mishaps initially caused by a kleptomaniac mole-like creature called a Niffler (imagine a Drilbur) lands him in the thick of a terrorist investigation of both the infamous wizard Grindelwald and a mysterious black entity, the “Obscurus.” With the help of the no-maj Jacob Kowalski (Dan Fogler), the disgraced Auror Tina Goldstein (Katherine Waterston), and her Legilimens sister Queenie Goldstein (Alison Sudol), Scamander and his suitcase full of fantastic beasts fight to keep the city from total destruction.
I don’t have any glaring faults with Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, but a handful of little things. Perhaps this is only me, but I went into the film expecting to have some clearer understanding of Scamander’s backstory, and I left the theatre no more informed than I had before. The movie dances around his backstory worse than the romantic tension between Hermoine and Ron. I also didn’t anticipate how desaturated the film is, but this is David Yates, so why was I even surprised? In moments like the Occamy (imagine a giant Dratini), the scene would have been more spectacular in vivid color.
Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them does a better job in making J.K. Rowling’s universe vaster than Harry Potter. By default it almost has to—Harry Potter was restricted to events circulating around Hogwarts—but the film takes steps to expand the universe globally. The Thunderbird, for example, is being transported from Egypt to Arizona; one scene includes a council of wizards and witches from practically every country in the world; and the magical New York City of 1926 felt like the real New York City of the 1920s that you or I could easily walk into (provided we had a Time Turner with infinite number of turns). These are small details, but they help to shape my visualization and grow my appreciation further for the universe.
Fantastic Beasts is a worthy addition to the world of witchcraft and wizardry. It’s a perfect blend of adventure, mystery, magic, and most importantly, Eddie Redmayne’s charming smile.