Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them Review

Written and produced by J.K Rowling herself and directed by franchise regular David yates, Fantastic beasts and where to find them is the story of newt Scamander before he became the famous author whose books on magical creatures is a staple of Hogwarts.

On the outset, this movie seems rather needless. It’s a prequel to Harry Potter and is set in New York City in 1926. Interesting as the premise is, the plot from the trailers seemed boring. So I was apprehensive about this film. It seems my fears were not founded. This movie is pretty good and a solid entry into the magical world of Potter.

Since its written by the original author, this film has all the hall marks of a Harry Potter film,

A Young and misunderstood wizard – Check

His rather useless but funny sidekick – Check

A strong, smart and serious young lady who quotes rules all the time – Check

A Dark and powerful wizard hell bent on taking over the wizarding world – Double Check!

In some ways, in lots of ways, this feel like a sequel to harry potter if you imagine harry as newt and Hermione as the Tina, everything else falls into place. Miss Rowling hasn’t strayed too far from the formula of a dynamic trio vs magical forces.

For Potter fans this film has a lot of magic, new places, new concept… lots to occupy the eye and mind both. I am not discussing the plot as its more of a spoiler, but I felt the first half of the film was a bit meandering and took its time to come to the topic and I was a bit bored for the first 45 mins or so, despite the charm of old New York and all the new magical items and people.

But the second half speeds up and is crackling and pretty much makes up for the slower start.

As an actor, I really can’t stand Eddie Redmayne and I liked the movie despite him. I found myself missing Daniel Radcliffe at times. Dan fogler is pretty decent as Jacob the no-mag (muggles as they are called in America).

The effects in this film range from hokey to amazing and wonderful, the climax looks very CGI fest, but then the resolution to the climax was simply magical.

So in short, Potter fans won’t be disappointed. This film sets up its own 1920’s world, with lots of things kept for the sequel, yet the film itself doesn’t feel incomplete. In that J.K Rowling succeeds exceedingly well.

Rating 7.5/10. It’s well-crafted, quite magical, if a bit slow at times.