We Saw Fantastic Beasts And Where To Find Them And It’s Just What The World Needs Now
Last night we got to see a preview of Fantastic Beasts and Where To Find Them, and it was amazing to be back in the wizarding world.
There should be no shocking value that J.K. Rowling is a genius! She was able to take a 128 page book that was straight from the library at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry and make it into the latest fantasy film in the realm of Harry Potter.
Below is one of the trailers out, to wet your palette on the latest installment of the newest franchise.
Fantastic Beasts is pure magic
The movie is set up in America, in the 1920s and begins with Newt’s arrival in New York City. The backdrop was incredible and accurate, going as far as to not have the iconic Empire State Building in it, which was not open until 1931.
The Oscar-winning Redmayne plays him (Newt Scamander) to perfection as an awkward, maladroit young wizard who is far more comfortable around animals than people.
Expelled from Hogwarts, he has been a social outcast who travels the globe in search of magical creatures, which he captures and keeps in his suitcase – an awesome magical device that encloses a massive nature preserve.
A copy of Fantastic Beasts and Where To Find Them resides in almost every wizarding household in the country. Now Muggles too have the chance to discover where the Quintaped lives, what the Puffskein eats, and why it is best not to leave milk out for a Knarl.
For the most part, Newt has been left alone.
That changes when some of his pets escape the case.
Yates (who helmed the last four Potter movies) and Rowling, whose film is propelled by a potent mix of CGI and lyrical romanticism, have buckets of fun with these magical beings. It’s clear they delight in their creations.
One of Newt’s pals is a small, cute, and furry platypuslike dude that is fascinated by things that shine. A terrific early scene in a bank has it darting around stealing coins, rings, necklaces, and pocket watches.
Another beast, a tiny green stick insect that lives in Newt’s jacket pocket, can pick locks and comes in handy when Newt gets stuck in the bank’s vault.
Fantastic Beasts has two parallel story lines. In the first, Newt chases down his escaped beasts with help of a motley crew: a working class no-maj (the American word for a Muggle), wonderfully portrayed by Dan Fogler (Barely Lethal), and two comely female wizards, Porpentina “Tina” Goldstein (Katherine Waterston) and her sister Queenie (Alison Sudol). Dare I say that the foursome and their antics does remind me of another famous group from the Potter world.
The three actors are part of a marvelous ensemble cast that also includes Colin Farrell, Jon Voight, Samantha Morton, Carmen Ejogo, and Johnny Depp.
The second, darker story is about a series of deadly attacks by an evil magical entity that have all but shut down New York.
Newt is sucked into the struggle when he’s arrested by security officers from the Magical Congress of the United States of America (MACUSA) as the wizard responsible for the terror attacks.
His crime, we find out, comes with the death penalty.
Terror attacks? Security forces? The death penalty?
For better or worse, Fantastic Beasts has a whopper of a subtext, a blanket critique of American society that continuously rises up from every nook and cranny of the story.
Rowling paints a disturbing, even ugly, picture of America as a violent cauldron of repression and xenophobia ruled by paranoia and fear. It’s the era of Prohibition, and people are beset on all sides by self-appointed guardians of morality and patriotism.
This may be a period piece, but it’s really about life in the age of the war on terror, the war on illegal immigration, the war on drugs – and, at least as Rowling sees it, the war on the poor. The New York we see here is controlled by malevolent robber barons and greedy, narcissistic politicians.
The context may be lost on the tweens that go to see Fantastic Beasts And Where To Find them, all they may get out of this soon to be blockbuster, is that for a little over 2 hours, magic exists and we all want magic to exist, even if it’s just for a moment.
Fantastic Beasts And Where To Find Them
Director: David Yates
Writers: J.K. Rowling, J.K. Rowling (textbook)
Starring: Eddie Redmayne, Katherine Waterston, Alison Sudol, Colin Farrell, Zoë Kravitz, Ezra Miller, Dan Fogler, Johnny Depp
Taglines: J.K. Rowling invites you to a new era of the wizarding world
Genres: Adventure | Family | Fantasy
Expected MPAA Rating: Rated PG-13 for some fantasy action violence
Official Socials: Site | Facebook | Twitter | Instagram | IMDb |
Hashtag: #FantasticBeasts
The adventures of writer Newt Scamander in New York’s secret community of witches and wizards seventy years before Harry Potter reads his book in school.
