Searching for Fantastic Beasts in all the right places

Eddie Redmayne in Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. Image courtesy Warner Bros.

The best thing author J. K. Rowling has done with her beloved and profitable Harry Potter franchise is to effectively start over from scratch with Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. She and established Potter director David Yates have taken the adventure away from the chosen one and shifted it from the constraining walls of Hogwarts to the more inviting playground of New York City circa 1926. What results is the start of a new series of adventures with a more interesting protagonist (Eddie Redmayne's Newt Scamander) and a new angle that only deepens Rowling’s expansive and endearing magical world.

Fantastic Beasts is a fresh start for a series that grew stale as the installments grew and Harry Potter dove deeper and deeper into the dreadful angst that gobbled up the final two films. A melodramatic darkness consumed those later films, the characters (besides Alan Rickman's Snape) becoming less engaging as the series drew to a close and the poorly rendered final scene arrived with a bit of a thud. Fantastic Beasts is much looser with its tone, its focus centered less on the existential dread Harry Potter faced as the boy lived and more on Scamander's quest to become the wizard world's version of an environmentalist. Much of the film is a scavenger hunt, with Scamander, his human companion Jacob Kowalski (Dan Fogler), wizard investigator Tina (Katherine Waterston) and her sister Queenie (Alison Sudol) flittering about the city searching for a few creatures that escaped from Scamander's case. It's an excuse to see a few of Rowling's creatures come to as close to life as possible (and the effects are quite effective in conveying their imagined majesty) while engaging in shenanigans and causing moderate to severe mayhem in New York City. Fantastic Beasts is really just a fun movie to watch, something to pop on for kids interested in seeing a magical adventure.

Oddly enough, Fantastic Beasts is the most adult film Rowling's magical cinematic universe has produced to this point. All of the characters are well into adulthood (the four major actors are at least 32 years old), meaning their interactions have a naturally strained vibe to them that comes from meeting new people after a certain age. These aren't wide eyed kids going to school for the first time; these are weary adults with fading hopes and dreams that never quite materialized. There’s also a fair amount of darkness skirts the edges of the otherwise bright escapades of Scamander and friends that, unlike much of the Harry Potter films, is tied to the safety of the humans (referred to as Muggles and No-Majs) in the film. Fantastic Beasts shows the repercussions Rowling characters can have on the world beyond Hogwarts, including death to civilians with no means of defending themselves against powers outside their concepts. It's also kind of horrifying to see how easily Colin Farrell's mysterious wizard Peter Graves can just appear in front of another character (usually troubled orphan Credence played by Ezra Miller) to manipulate him or just because he can do it. Unlike the previous films, the amount of inherent trust in the decency of the wizarding community is reduced greatly, even with the institutional knowledge granted from the Harry Potter series.

Humans (or Muggles or Non-Majs) are the real key to what makes Fantastic Beasts such a nifty little big budget film to watch. Having a character like Fogler's Kowalski to serve as an audience surrogate is a nice touch and a major component to differentiate Newt's adventures from Harry's. It's fascinating watching Kowalski absorb the reality of another universe hidden just behind his own – one complete with biting critters and beings capable of cooking with a few flicks of their wrists – on the fly, picking up the pieces as he gets roped into one zany escapade after another. Fogler sells the experience marvelously – highlighted by a shocked giggle that erupts at just the right moment – and his character arc is the most emotionally engaging aspect of the film. It only makes sense for Fantastic Beasts to end with the lovable schlub following his dream as a smile spreads on his face; Newt and the wizards are the future of the franchise, but Rowling knows the heart of this film belongs to Kowalski.

Rating: Four out of Five Stars

Click here to see the trailer.

Rating: PG-13

Run time: 133 minutes

Genre: Fantasy

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Target audience: Folks in their twenties who grew up reading and watching the Harry Potter franchise.

Take the whole family?: It does get a little dark toward the end, although it isn't anything worse than Prisoner of Azkaban.

Theater or Netflix?: Could be something fun to take the family to before or during the holiday shopping spree.

How many films can they get out of this?: Per IMDB, director David Yates is signed on for six in all, so at least one shy of the Harry Potter film series. It is a little worrying to see that many films lined up, especially if J. K. Rowling loses track of what to do with her new protagonist.

Watch this as well?: Prisoner of Azkaban is the highlight of the original franchise and is worth checking out for Alan Rickman, Timothy Spall and Gary Oldman, and Goblet of Fire is superb as well. Otherwise, you could hit up some Disney and watch  The Sword in the Stone or catch Labyrinth.