Nerds That Geek Movie Review: 'Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them'

Written by Mike Cervantes

THIS IS THE EMERGENCY SPOILER ALERT SYSTEM...YOU ARE ADVISED TO READ AT YOUR OWN RISK...

Remember when it was 2007? The whole Harry Potter series came to a satisfying conclusion with The Deathly Hallows, and J.K. Rowling insisted that this was to be the very end of Harry Potter’s adventure. This, of course still led to some speculation as to whether the very deep and globe-spanning wizard universe created in the Harry Potter books would ever be seen by us again. I think about three years passed before we heard the first announcements of new Potter-verse material, first on stage with Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, known to us American fans solely through the print release of its manuscript. That work felt very polarizing to Potter fans on this side of the pond, and, since the work featured a pair of co-writers, often made us wonder whether the adult versions of the characters in the play truly lined up with the characters as we remember them in the novels.
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Now we have Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, a movie bankrolled by Warner Bros., with a script that is slightly more hands-on in terms of J.K. Rowling contributions. It is a prequel, featuring only enough references to the original novel to make the whole thing still stand on its own as an original work. It is based upon a novelty “Hogwarts textbook” of the same name, written by Rowling as a contribution to the U.K.’s Comic Relief charity. Its central character is the novelty book’s author, Newt Scamander, played with Doctor Who-esque eccentricity by Eddie Redmayne, as he takes a trip to post World War I New York City on a personal mission to release a Thunderbird named Frank into the wild. Along the way he collides with a muggle baker named Jacob Koalski (Dan Fogler), and switches similar suitcases with him, leading to a situation where Newt’s suitcase, a pocket dimension used to preserve several magical creatures, is opened, setting several of them loose to run wild in the streets. It is up to Newt, Jacob, an under-appreciated Auror named Tina Goldstein (Katheryne Waterson), and her clairvoyant sister Queenie (Alison Sudol) to round up all the critters before they risk the exposure of Wizard-kind.

That plot in itself would have made for two-and-a-half hours of simple popcorn-munching joy, but we’d be underestimating Rowling if that is all there’d be within her narrative. The film takes great glee in continuing to expand Rowling’s massive universe to the American continent, illustrating for us how a whole other culture embodies the tropes that already exist in the Potter-verse. There's “The Magical Congress of the United States,” this story’s version of The Ministry of Magic, and President Seraphina Picquery (Carmen Ejogo), who keeps constant surveillance over the country’s awareness of Wizards. In every room a color-coated dial slowly builds towards red, depending on how much wizards are exposed to the American public. Muggles are given the slightly more descriptive term “No-Maj,” and a speakeasy for illegal magical activities exists complete with torch-singers and mobsters that all happen to be house elves and goblins. 

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Then, of course, there is the inevitable dark undercurrent of Rowling’s works. This film doesn’t have the luxury of ramping up the secret horrors of her fantasy world as her first seven novels did. Right out of the gate we’re made aware that the legendary dark wizard Gellert Grindelwald (Johnny Depp) is still at large, and his sole ambition towards evildoing is exposing the wizard community, just so that the war between wizards and No-Maj’s can finally happen. There’s already a puritan-esque anti-witch commune, led by Mary Lou Barebone (Samantha Morton), her children Credence (Ezra Miller), and Chastity (Jenn Murray). Their presence is investigated by both Tina and agenda-keeping fellow Auror Percival Graves (Colin Ferrell), that comes to a head when a magical creature known as a Obscurial becomes present in New York. According to Newt, Obscurials only appear when wizards suppress and hate their own magical abilities. (My allegory senses are tingling…)
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Now that the story seems to be bursting at the seams with details, you’d expect it to be too glutted with information to be watchable. Admirably, however, everything that is described above neatly fits and folds into the plot in a way that you can see the adventure through from beginning to end and be in awe of the whole spectacle, assuming you already know a significant amount of the established Potter lore. Nothing is explained in terms of magic spells, potions, and ironically, the various abilities possessed of the magical creatures constantly thrown on screen by Newt, including one amorphous blob that he keeps in his pocket and literally tosses at his enemies. Predictably, the more intriguing backstory surrounding the Magical Congress is ultimately saved for inevitable sequels, while the much more straightforward capturing of magical creatures is in the forefront. Also, there are times when the allegory of Rowling’s fantasy world, compared to the realities of our own, tend to punch you in the face instead of make themselves present with knowing subtlety, the same way they were in the original novels. 

Sadly, the attempt to further Harry Potter’s own story in The Cursed Child is going to take a backseat to this movie, which is in every way, a more faithful representation of the original stories in movie form. It isn’t perfect, and frankly, without Rowling writing cover to cover, it may never be, but at least with this spinoff of the franchise, the time turner appears to be functioning as normal, as is the pensieve. 

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