SPOILERS THROUGHOUT
In a year where Warner Bros. limped out of the gate with their mega-franchise (DC comics), the studio has turned to their other mega-franchise to win them a sure-fire hit. While the Harry Potter films have their fair share of flaws (which this writer won't get into here..) they hold a very special place in people's hearts, in particular for 20-something-year-olds - Generation 1 fans who literally grew up with the characters on page or on screen. J.K. Rowling has returned to this world in a new time period and location (1920s New York) with a new cast of characters. Rowling has expanded a slim volume released for Comic Relief into a full-on franchise starter. Does Fantastic Beasts come close to matching the heart of the Harry Potter stories?
Newt Scamander has reached the end of an excursion around the world, finding and documenting magical beasts. Endangered ones he keeps and looks after in his TARDIS-esque briefcase. Arriving in New York for a brief stopover, with the intention of freeing a hippogriff into the wilds, his briefcase accidentally falls into the hands of Jacob, a No-Maj (American slang for Muggle), who inadvertently releases some of the creatures into the city, which could spell trouble for the magical and non-magical worlds. Jacob gets pulled into the hidden magical world of New York as he and Newt begin the search for and return all the loose creatures. This is against the darker backdrop of an anti-witch movement known as the Second Salems, who are harbouring a dark secret..
The film's biggest issue is that the background and world building are more interesting than the main story - Newt and Jacob teaming up to find and collect the magical creatures is passable enough but it is fairly surface level. Ultimately, what is happening with the Second Salem movement and the rise of dark wizard Grindelwald is more compelling. Since the Pokemon-esque main plot is the prime-attention of the film, the more interesting elements aren't given enough time to breath and as such aren't explored fully. While I don't think a children's film needs to have children for the prime audience to relate to (kids seem to react to Star Wars and Marvel films well enough) the lack of a charismatic lead really does hurt the film. I'm just going to say it - I couldn't stand Eddie Redmayne in the lead. On paper, I love the idea of a socially-awkward nerd saving the day through his brain as opposed to brawn, but there's just this irritating quirkiness to the role (in the same way Matt Smith annoyed me as The Doctor) that Redmayne just seems to inflate. Quirk is fine - but there is nothing more annoying than forced quirk. It is a bizarre performance. Newt just isn't a compelling character and the writer is either withholding information on him for later films to doesn't quite know how to handle him. Newt doesn't really have an arc, so to speak and I think this hurts the film. To be honest, I wish the film was told from Jacob's perspective because he's a much more compelling, and funny, character. His motivations are clear, his reactions to the wizarding world are great and the actor just seems to be having a blast as the hapless dope falling into a story much larger than his own. And it would be a clever inversion of the Harry Potter role - a non-magical character as the lead. Redmayne then might have been more tolerable then as the strange 'sidekick' (a Jack Sparrow role if you will, circa Pirates 1).
Newt and Jacob are joined by sisters Tina and Queenie Goldstein, the former a down-to-earth no nonsense member of the Magical Congress of the United States of America, or MACUSA, and the latter a free-spirited mind reader. Rowling's works are famously laced with feminist undertones. One only needs to look at Hermione, an icon for geek girls and boys the world over, to understand Rowling's views on how female characters should be represented. Simple. Just write a good character. The fact that Rowling has put two female leads in a cast of four speaks volumes and I'm glad there is equal representation. However, my biggest gripe is that, like Newt, they are not terribly compelling characters. Which is a massive shame because Rowling gets it, especially after creating a character as wonderful as Hermione (and the other varied and fascinating women of the Harry Potter world). They end up feeling more of a statistic as opposed to living, breathing characters. Tina and Queenie are given sufficient motivation enough, and the actors are clearing trying to infuse them with something, but, like Newt, they never really come to life. Maybe given time, they will develop these characters more (Tina has some hints at a traumatic past but presumably this will be expanded in later films) but as it stands we've seen these arcs before. Ultimately, this new group never feels comfortable together and doesn't cohere the way you want them to. I really don't want to keep making Harry Potter comparisons but since this is part of Rowling's Wizarding World (and has probably been expanded into five films to make this into a full on prequel series) it seems fair - just look at the way the three of them bonded together into a team by the end of Philosopher's Stone. Funnily enough, on a side-note, the film doesn't make too many call backs its parent franchise (I guess the time period makes it impossible) - Dumbeldore is mentioned once and one line got a smile from me; Newt proudly saying "I think you'll find that Hogwarts is the best wizarding school in the world".
So far, I have come down pretty hard on the film but I should say I actually ultimately ended up enjoying it quite a bit. While I think the scenes with the beasts go on too long, the designs are all unique, different and creative. I especially like the jewellery-thief mole. The period details are great and the imagination involved in not only recreating this era of New York but designing a secret magical world underneath is inspired. However, I was desperate to get back to the B-Plots. Just, the background details are more fascinating to me. The idea of magical CIA is fairly inspired. The performances from the side-characters are great. I like that Colin Farrell is finally in a 'Harry Potter' film (meaning the whole main cast of one of my favourite films of all time, In Bruges, have been in one of these films) and he's great as the mysterious Percival Graves. Ezra Miller's quiet and tortured performance, who ends up revealing something far more sinister, is also very compelling. Dan Fogler is wonderful as Jacob and his reactions to the wizarding world (and people's reactions to him) are hilarious. The Second Salems add a fascinating new dimension to the Harry Potter universe - No-Majs trying to reveal the wizarding to the larger population, whilst being secretly influenced by Grindelwald. The militant way in which this ideology is spread feels very real and relevant to today. Grindelwald's motivation (which is kept very hidden in the background - it might even have been a throw away line) is also great - he disagrees with the idea that the wizarding world should be kept hidden and wants them to return to an era where wizards and witches lived together with the No-Majs. This has the potential for good but has ultimately become corrupted into a vision where magic rules all. Heck you could even make this into a conflict of interests a la Professer X vs. Magneto's clashing ideologies, just between Dumbeldore and Grindelwald (who were former lovers after all!). This desire to a return to an idealised past that never existed could even draw upon Brexit comparisons (Rowling has been very vocal on this subject matter). What I'm trying to say is that there are plenty of compelling elements to the film that could have expanded upon and made into a much more compelling story. The catch-'em all plot line just doesn't hold the same interest for me as all the other elements that make up the film.
I will give Fantastic Beasts this though - it goes places I didn't expect it to, both bizarre and dark - to the point where the tone is all over the place. In fact, the film contains one of the strangest scenes I've seen in a blockbuster in a long time, in which Jacob applies a pheromone to attract one of the magical beasts (a giant rhino) to entice it to return to Newt's suitcase. This is proceeded by Redmayne embarrassing himself by trying to court the rhino back into his suitcase by doing a mating dance - audible uncomfortable silence in the theatre (with some chuckling from me). The more one thinks about it, the stranger it gets. Joking aside, I actually do appreciate that the film ends on a dark note - our heroes don't really save the day. There's some fairly cruel corporal punishment handed out that makes the wizarding world of Britain look fairly liberal! But when you go from mating dances to seriously mentally-scarring punishments, your tone is going to suffer. I don't want to keep comparing this to Harry Potter but the humour in those films always felt appropriate - it was well judged and never felt like it clashed with the more dramatic stuff (except for Half-Blood Prince maybe). That said, at least Rowling is trying to make it unique and is trying to do stuff that other blockbusters wouldn't touch, especially with what I call the gentrification of Hollywood (a piece I will write someday!).
As a stand-alone flick, Fantastic Beasts would be a fun, if very flawed, expansion of the wizarding world that would shed new light on Rowling's wizarding world. However, with four more films in the pipeline (seemingly to star the same cast) I can't shake this feeling of overstreaching and cashing-in on people's nostalgia for Harry Potter. Ultimately, Harry Potter is about three friends growing up and all the ups and downs that come with that. There's a real heart to the stories that make them compelling. Fantastic Beasts offers a nice expansion of the universe but no real emotional core. I never found the magical creatures of Harry Potter that compelling and the expansion where doesn't form a compelling story. Ultimately, it's a breezy, well-made film with some interesting world-expansion elements but just can't shake off its parent franchise and become its own thing. Ironically enough the film that doesn't star children actually feels more childish than the franchise that had a predominantly young cast...
Rating: 6/10
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