Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them: a review by Kasey Senatore

Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them

A review by Kasey Senatore

On the 19th, my family and I went out to see Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. We’ve always been avid Harry Potter fans, my sister and I having read all the books and my parents having seen all the movies, so we were really excited to see the next installment in the Potter franchise. But before I can talk about it more, I feel as though I should explain what exactly it is.

So to start off: it is not a sequel to the Harry Potter series. It’s set in the same universe, of course; Newt Scamander wrote Fantastic Beasts, a textbook which Harry buys in his first year at Hogwarts. It’s also mentioned that Newt, the main character pictured above, was one of Dumbledore’s favorite students back before he became Headmaster. However, understand that Fantastic Beasts is set well before Harry Potter was born, with a completely different plot. If you walk into the theater expecting a sequel, you will be disappointed.

Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them is a film adaptation of a fake textbook released by JK Rowling in 2001. The movie follows Newt Scamander, a charmingly awkward, British magizoologist and aspiring author who finds himself in 1960s New York. As Newt makes his way through New York, he accidentally releases a few creatures and finds himself in deep trouble with the American magical government. At the same time, sightings of a strange, malevolent creature demolishing buildings have begun to spread through the city. You can view the trailer right here. Now that the exposition is over, let’s get right into the details.

Characters

I could write for ages about the characters of Fantastic Beasts. This, in my opinion, was the strongest part of the movie by far -- there was chemistry, relatability, and a certain sense of charming imperfection found in each of the characters that made watching the movie most enjoyable. The protagonists are organic and lifelike, as are their interactions.

However, I say the protagonists specifically for good reason. The antagonists of the movie are at best poorly developed and at worst confusing. What I mean is, you see this guy in the beginning of the film, and you instantly know he’s the Bad Guy. There’s no way for you to see this man’s face, and not say, “yeah, he’s definitely a villain.” Graves’s demeanor, speech patterns and looks all point to him being a bad guy. However, therein lies the flaw: Graves is a completely forgettable, cliched villain. Not only that, but his motive as a villain is completely unknown for the majority of the movie. I, for one, didn’t understand it at all, and still don’t. He just seems to be a bad person, and the movie hopes you’ll just accept that and not question it.

Graves is also involved in a hugely butchered plot twist near the end of the movie; this part of his character is a spoiler, however, and if you want to avoid it, I’d steer clear of the plot section of this review.

Special Effects

The special effects were also an extremely strong part of the movie. In a film full of thunderbirds, nifflers and bowtruckles, it’s an essential component to make the world feel truly alive. If you go out and see Fantastic Beasts, be ready to be dazzled by the handsome detail and care taken with the creatures’ presentation.

Plot (contains spoilers)

This is definitely where Fantastic Beasts suffers the most. In a two-hour long movie, you have to make the plot interesting and easy to understand; if someone starts getting confused in the beginning of a two-hour movie, the rest of it probably won’t make much sense to them either. And yes, I did, most definitely, get confused during the movie. It seemed to want to focus on the characters and give each their due time, while at the same time attempting to paint a rich world and detailed plot. In the end, it turned into huge scenes of Newt and his new friends searching for creatures, spliced with clips of Graves urging Credence (in a dramatic, gravelly whisper) to find “the child” and scenes of a gigantic shadow monster rampaging through the streets of New York. What I’m saying is, it wasn’t well done. Exposition was laid on heavy-handedly, while at the same time managing to be vague and under-detailed enough to confuse the viewer.

Possibly the most notable example of plot-holes lies with Graves. After Credence and the obscurial are killed, there is a facial reveal involving Graves. Somehow, Newt is able to realize that Graves isn’t really Graves, and turns his wand on him as he goes to leave the scene. The head of MACUSA then pulls a magical disguise off of Graves’ face Scooby-Doo style, revealing him to be...um...a white-haired Johnny Depp with an undercut?

The characters then comment, awed and terrified, that Graves was really Grindelwald in disguise. Yeah, that random Johnny Depp character is Grindelwald. Graves, for any fans who don’t remember (as I didn’t), is a dark wizard whom Voldemort killed in his search for the Elder Wand. However, even if you did know who Grindelwald was, this reveal would still be meaningless to you. Why? Because Grindelwald was never shown in any of the movies! We never knew what he looked like. This bugs me more than anything else in the movie -- you can’t do a facial reveal in a movie and expect it to be effective if the face you’re revealing isn’t significant to the viewer!

Historical Inaccuracies

Another issue in Fantastic Beasts that I’ve seen pointed out is the universe. Fantastic Beasts is set in 1920s New York. This was not a time of great respect or safety for black people in America. As such, the fact that the movie never explains how Seraphina Picquery, an African American woman, could be respected as the President of MACUSA in 1920s America, is rather jarring.

New York in the 1920s was also the host of the Harlem Renaissance, in which the African American population and culture of Harlem, NY, was booming. One of the biggest critiques I’ve seen of the universe setting is not that lead roles were not filled by people of color, but that the movie itself never included black people in background roles, filling the streets of “New York.” Even the Great Gatsby, a movie whose focus was entirely on rich white people, included black people in the world (an example of such representation pictured above). This is a flaw seen in many fantasy novels and movies, including well-respected novels like the Lord of the Rings. Working toward world-building diversity would be an important step in the right direction for modern fantasy, and it is my hope that the coming movies will seek to improve on this historical error.

Overall

Overall, I felt the movie was a promising start to the new installment in the Potter world. The characters are relatable and lovable, the special effects are to die for, and the developing American side to the universe is a breath of fresh life to the aging franchise. Though the plot is more than a little hard to follow and the historical accuracy could use some touching up, the film overall is definitely a decent start. 6.5/10 -- I’d definitely recommend seeing it -- just don’t expect another Harry Potter just yet.