Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them | Film Review

No one likes to see a beloved tale come to its inevitable end. In the case of “Harry Potter”, it was a long, sweet journey indeed.  Millions around the world – and I include myself amongst that Potterhead throng –  couldn’t get enough of the boy wizard’s enthralling adventure as he discovered his true identity and place in a sprawling, magical world hidden just out of sight from us ordinary Muggles.

To call “Harry Potter” a phenomenon is almost an understatement. There hadn’t been anything quite like it before, and it will probably be a quite a spell before we see its like again.  When “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows” finally hit bookshelves and theater screens around the world, fans were heartbroken that the end had finally arrived.  Sure, there has since been a published version of the stage play “Harry Potter and the Cursed Child”, but with “The Deathly Hallows” we were essentially done with Harry, Ron, Hermione, and the rest of the gang for…..well, forever.

So imagine everyone’s delighted surprise when it was announced that J.K. Rowling’s spin-off book, “Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them” was headed to the big screen, kicking off a planned five film franchise. All was right with the world again.  Sadly, Harry and his troop wouldn’t be returning, but it was enough that we would be once again thrust into the wonderful world of wizards, witches, and muggles for more magical adventures.  “Bring it on”, the masses cried.  “We need this.”  And no-one was crying out louder than me.

And here we are. I know many are foaming at the mouth for this, and I’m sure it will be the film that dethrones “Doctor Strange” from the number one spot.  Yep, there’s going to be a lot of excited chatter in the lineups for this one, and I was quite sure I would be amongst them after my first viewing.  Films I love usually get a second viewing, usually upgrading from 2D to 3D, and I felt this was a sure bet.

Alas, my weekend is now open.

I won’t be checking it out again, at least not on the big screen. “Fantastic Beasts”, as far as I’m concerned, has come and gone.  What I thought was going to be one of my favorites for the year has turned out to be one of my biggest disappointments.  Yes, folks, the owl I’m delivering is not brimming with squeals of delight and happiness.  It is, unfortunately, a Howler.

Now, I want to start by saying that this is not a bad movie. Director David Yates, who also helmed the last four “Harry Potter” films, is a great director and he guides “Fantastic Beasts” along with a steady hand and gives us some pretty exciting visuals.  The production designers have given us one of the best representations of 1940s New York I’ve seen, and the roster is loaded with top level talent in all areas of the production, both in front of and behind the camera.

So, what the hell went wrong? Is it just me?  I mean, there are lots of glowing reviews out there, and I really want to join in on the party.  But I can’t.  The urge to cheat and brush aside what I perceive as shortcomings is very strong, but…..I just can’t.

I think the problems here fall into three categories: script, tone, and characterization.  There’s actually one more, but I’ll touch on that towards the end as it has more to do with my personal feelings rather than something I can point at directly within the production itself.

Okay, let’s start with the script. Yes, the script written by J.K. Rowling herself.  Christ, you have no idea how much it hurts to say this.  The script….is a bit of a mess.  What Rowling is trying to do here is basically take a very short book, which is a mini-encyclopedia of magical creatures, and lay the groundwork for a story which will eventually stretch out into a ten plus hour saga.  That world building involves, essentially, the interweaving of three storylines in this particular movie; Newt Scamander’s arrival in New York and his reasons for the trip, the mystery behind a magical creature’s destructive rampage through New York which threatens to expose the existence of the magical world to the No-Majs (the American term for Muggles), and the added mystery of Gellert Grindelwald, a powerful wizard who is up to a lot of no-good.  Long story short, it’s a bit too crowded here.

The story was often hard to follow with all of the jumping around, and there were times I felt lost. Who is that again?  Why are we here?  Did I miss something?  The Grindelwald elements in particular are a bit vague, introduced through the time-honored movie tradition of a flurry of newspaper headlines.  Honestly, I missed about half of them, though I did get the gist of what they were saying.  Things seemed really rushed from beginning to end, and where I wished to be caught up in the story, I instead – too often – felt swept aside.

The tone here is quite dark. I can appreciate a well told journey into darkness, and I’m not one of those people that want a vibrant color pallet and bright, blue skies from beginning to end.  It all has to do with how that darkness is handled.  Here, it’s a bit too much.  With Newt and his fantastical menagerie there are often hints of whimsy to come, but they rarely do.  The film starts to pull you in one direction, only to suddenly yank you off in another.  It’s jarring, and added to the confusing plot, can be quite disorienting.

There is a scene involving capital punishment that perfectly illustrates this. This scene is sudden, terrifying (but not in a good way), and goes on way too long.  The way some of the characters behaved in this scene was just off-putting, and it felt like the filmmakers were trying to send a message about their stance on death as a means of punishment.  In short, it was icky.  I would have appreciated a better balance here between the light and the dark.  Not too much, not too little.  Again, I have nothing against delving into the bleaker corners of the J.K. Rowling universe.  As I stated before, I love the Potter stories, and I’d argue that they were way darker – especially in the later books – than most of what’s on display here, but it was handled much, much better in those stories.

The characters in this are not what I would call memorable. Eddie Redmayne is a fine actor, and I was liking what he brought to the character of Newt Scamander in the beginning, but his shtick and quirkiness soon became tiresome.  And I love quirky.  Katherine Waterston is another good performer, but I too often found her characterization of the ex-Auror Tina to be dull, and there were a couple of times I just wanted to just shake her alive in frustration.  Colin Farrell spends most of his time skulking about in the shadows and glowering a lot, and while he’s very good at that, that’s about as far as his portrayal of the Auror Percival Graves goes.  And then there’s Credence Barebone, as played by Ezra Miller.  This poor schmuck is the epitome of a downer.  Whenever he’s on screen, I just felt depressed.  I know that is what his character is supposed to be like, but like the story itself, it was too much.  It has nothing to do with Miller’s acting abilities.  I just didn’t care for the character.

Thank the Gods for Dan Fogler as the down on his luck baker, Kowalski, and for Alison Sudol as Tina’s mind-reading sister, Queenie. Almost all of the fun, whimsy, and emotion in the movie belongs to these two.  I hope they continue to play prominent roles as the series progresses as they both nailed their performances and were a joy to watch.

Now for that other thing I alluded to before. For a story set in The Potterverse, it just didn’t feel that magical to me.  Sure, there’s a lot of magical shenanigans, but I’m talking about that magical feeling we get when we are watching something that just grips us and pulls us up into the clouds.  It wasn’t there.  Is it suffering by comparison to what came before?  Yeah, I think that’s part of it.  I wish also that there had been more magical locations.  Aside from the scenes inside Newt’s suitcase, and a few minutes spent in the American version of The Ministry of Magic, most of the movie plays out in No-Maj land.  There aren’t any wizarding schools, hidden alleys, butter beer saloons, or quidditch stadiums.  And I was surprised that there wasn’t a broom in sight.  What’s up with that?  All in all, the glimpses of the magical world were often too brief, and I was constantly yearning for much, much more.

Am I being too harsh here? I wish I wasn’t forced to be.  Again, this is not what I would label as a bad movie.  There’s a lot to love.  The fantastic beasts themselves were great, especially the purloining platypus looking thing, and were largely responsible for most of what I did enjoy.  I just wish the rest of the movie was just as fantastic.

“Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them” is epic in execution, but suffers from the stresses of having to build a new world within an already established universe, and from trying to introduce too many storylines that – rather than meshing together effortlessly – become entangled and are a chore to unsnarl. The ensuing confusion further complicates the situation by taking away precious time that could have been used to flesh out characters and bring more magic to the gloomy, dark streets of New York.

Let’s hope, now that the foundation has been laid, that the next movies will soar and bring back the magic that I know exists in this world.