Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (2016) [Blu-ray]
Adventure | Family | Fantasy

Tagline: Explore a new era of J.K. Rowling's wizarding world

This wizardly spin-off from the cinematic world of Harry Potter relates the wondrous and exotic life of "magizoologist" Newt Scamander, who wrote the Hogwarts School's textbook on magical creatures decades before Harry Potter would lay eyes on it.

Storyline: Holding a mysterious leather suitcase in his hand, Newt Scamander, a young activist wizard from England, visits New York while he is on his way to Arizona. Inside his expanding suitcase hides a wide array of diverse, magical creatures that exist among us, ranging from tiny, twig-like ones, to majestic and humongous ones. It is the middle of the 20s and times are troubled since the already fragile equilibrium of secrecy between the unseen world of wizards and the ordinary or "No-Maj" people that the MACUSA Congress struggles to maintain, is at risk of being unsettled. In the meantime, the voices against wizardry keep growing with daily protests led by Mary Lou Barebone and fuelled by the increasing disasters ascribed to a dark wizard, Gellert Grindelwald. At the same time, by a twist of fate, Newt's precious suitcase will be switched with the identical one of an aspiring No-Maj baker, Jacob Kowalski, while demoted Auror, Tina Goldstein, arrests Newt for being an unregistered wizard. To... Written by Nick Riganas

Reviewer's Note: Reviewed by Michael Reuben, March 26, 2017 Nothing quickens a studio executive's pulse more than a sure-fire franchise. Warner Brothers appeared to have lost its most bankable series when the Harry Potter saga concluded in 2011 with the release of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2. But author J.K. Rowling came riding to the rescue like Dumbledore's Army, bearing a new entry in the Potterverse inspired by her slim 2001 volume published under the pen name of "Newt Scamander". Newt's guide to mystical creatures, entitled Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, is one of the textbooks assigned to young Harry in his first year at Hogwarts. Rowling's publication purported to be a copy of that very bestiary, with marginal notations by Harry, Ron and Hermione.

For the filmed version of Fantastic Beasts, Rowling wrote an original script delving into the origins of Newt Scamander's textbook and recounting the exploits of its author many years before Harry's fateful birth. Produced by Potter veterans David Heyman, Steve Kloves and Lionel Wigram, and directed by David Yates, who helmed the last four Potter films, Fantastic Beasts was released in November 2016 and was promptly devoured by Hogwarts veterans suffering from five years of Potter withdrawal. Four sequels are planned, and Fantastic Beasts' impressive world box office of $812 million guarantees that they'll be made.

In 1926, Newt Scamander arrives in New York City from Great Britain, bearing a battered suitcase that contains a dimensional portal to an animal preserve—but not for the usual endangered species. A self-taught expert on mystical wildlife (or, in Rowling-speak, a "magizoologist", the first of his kind), Newt bears the perpetually befuddled air of an absent-minded professor. Shy and abstracted, he's not particularly comfortable with other people (who, he says, find him "annoying"), but he has an instinctive rapport with magical animals, including many that the mainstream wizard world considers dangerous and would prefer to see exterminated. Newt thinks they're just misunderstood and mistreated and, in his own modest way, he wants to change his fellow wizards' hearts and minds on the subject.

The immediate purpose of Newt's trip is to return a rare Thunderbird, a kind of cross between a dragon and an American bald eagle, to its native habitat in Arizona, but he almost immediately becomes enmeshed in various intrigues. A case of identical suitcases prompts an odd-couple partnership with a local Muggle—or, "No-Maj", in American parlance—named Jacob Kowalski (Dan Fogler), a cannery worker who aspires to open his own bakery but can't get a bank loan. Newt also finds that he has arrived at a dangerous time for American wizards and their governing organization, the Magical Congress of the United States of America, or "MACUSA", which is headed by the imperious President Seraphina Picquery (Carmen Ejogo) and boasts a squadron of "Auror" enforcers. There is a growing movement among No-Majs to expose and condemn wizards, as typified by a messianic group known as "The Second Salemers". The leader of The Second Salemers is the severe Mary Lou Barebone (Samantha Morton), who has dragooned a fleet of adopted children into her service, including the downcast Credence (Ezra Miller) and an eerie little girl named Modesty (Faith Wood-Blagrove). While Mary Lou's initial attempts to enlist the aid of a powerful newspaper publisher, Henry Shaw Sr. (Jon Voight), in her anti-magical crusade are unsuccessful, the Shaw family will shortly reconsider their support when a mystical force intervenes in the political career of Shaw's eldest son, Henry Jr. (Josh Cowdery).

Newt Scamander has barely arrived in New York when he runs afoul of MACUSA after one of his creatures, a platypus-billed thief called a "Niffler", escapes and runs amuck in its magpie-like pursuit of shiny objects. Hauled into the organization's cavernous New York headquarters by a demoted Auror, Tina Goldstein (Katherine Waterson), who is seeking to reestablish her credentials, Newt attracts the attention of President Picquery's chief aide, a powerful wizard named Percival Graves (Colin Farrell), who has recently been tracking random eruptions of destructive magical forces. For a time, these mystical rampages are attributed to other escapees from Newt's menagerie, but it eventually becomes apparent that something more powerful and sinister is attacking the city, thereby threatening to expose the secret world of wizards to the fearful eyes of No-Maj society. It is Newt, with his accumulated knowledge of occult life forms, who is able to track down and confront the marauding spirit, aided by Jacob, Tina and Tina's sister, Queenie (Alison Sudol), a sweet-hearted coquette who has the useful ability to read minds.

Rowling is an established master at juggling multiple story lines while keeping an eye firmly on her tale's ultimate destination, and there are many moments in Fantastic Beasts where you can see her laying groundwork for things to come, especially in the hints about Newt Scamander's past. Looming over these early adventures is the threat of a renegade dark wizard, Gellert Grindelwald, whose younger self appeared briefly in flashbacks during the Potter series and who is introduced here in a cleverly animated opening montage of magical newspaper reports. (Grindelwald himself appears only briefly, played by Johnny Depp.) Grindelwald is obviously the Voldemort of this extended chronicle, but his plans and the future entwinement of his fate with Newt's remain for future installments to explore.

But Rowling offers more than a preamble. Newt's visit to New York provides a self-contained adventure that stands on its own while assembling an engaging band of companions to accompany him on future adventures. Newt's struggles with both New York's No-Maj world and the competing factions within MACUSA, and his ultimate confrontation with a mythical and lethal creature dubbed an "Obscurus", supply a solid narrative foundation, while allowing Rowling and director Yates plenty of room to explore a new realm of magical wonder and deliver on the title's promise of introducing us to an assortment of "fantastic beasts", both inside the multifaceted preserve that Newt has constructed within his case and in familiar environs like Macy's and Central Park. Though set in the past and an ocean away from Diagon Alley, the world of Fantastic Beasts feels entirely of a piece with Harry Potter's landscape of antique locales, dusty relics and ancient powers.

Fantastic Beasts is a welcome return to form for director Yates after the disappointment of The Legend of Tarzan. Yates has said that he initially resisted reenlisting for Rowling's world after four Harry Potter films but was won over by the strength of her script. The director and his producers and creative team bring with them a wealth of experience in the painstaking art of creating a quasi-naturalistic environment in which magic is an everyday occurrence for those who practice it, and supernatural events are just as likely to occur in the distance or at the edge of the frame instead of always taking center stage, as often happened in the early Potter films. Yates has also become adept at directing actors in lengthy sequences where they have to react to critical elements that don't yet exist and will be added later by CGI. It certainly helps that, as detailed in the disc's extras, Fantastic Beasts was shot on huge practical sets with lovingly crafted period detail, and that many of Newt's creatures were represented by elaborate articulated puppets. But the cast, especially Redmayne, Waterston and Fogler, deserve substantial credit for bringing this world alive with their credible immersion into their characters. All three are experienced players, but the film's breakout performance comes from Alison Sudol, whose Queenie is a charmingly original variation on the traditional dumb blonde (and, as things turn out, not so dumb). The reliable Ron Perlman supplies a comically sinister motion-captured performance as Gnarlack, the goblin proprietor of a demon speakeasy called The Blind Pig.

At the conclusion of Fantastic Beasts, Newt promises that he will personally deliver to Tina a copy of the book he is writing, the same one that will eventually become required reading at Hogwarts. MACUSA will no doubt remain suspicious of the diffident British wizard, but viewers and Tina eagerly await his return.

You don't need to have seen a single Harry Potter film to enjoy Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. Potter fanatics will find a wealth of references and clues, but newcomers should be thoroughly entertained by Newt Scamander's unexpected journey and the rich world of people and creatures he encounters. Warner has given the film a polished Blu-ray treatment that includes interesting and informative extras, and the disc is highly recommended.

[CSW] -2.9- I almost enjoyed Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. This movie came so close to being a welcome addition to the Harry Potter franchise. However, Newt Scamander isn’t a very likeable protagonist, the CGI beasts look less than fantastic and the story falls apart in the second half. Also, this film is darker than some may expect – it’s the same tone as the later movies in the Harry Potter series. Where’s the whimsy? Fifty points from Hufflepuff for this half-baked idea..
[V5.0-A5.0] MPEG-4 AVC - D-Box


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