Review of Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (2016) by Kyle M — 26 Mar 2017

"Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them" is a canon spin-off book to the Harry Potter series that's considered to be a textbook with notes made by Harry, Ron and Hermonie within J.K. Rowling's Wizarding World. Now the textbook got adapted into a film that not only resumes the unforgettable phenomenon of the Harry Potter films, but it expands the magical world as a welcomingly pleasant return under the franchise's author's visionary writing at her debut as screenwriter.

As it's been five years since the Harry Potter films came to an end with the epic "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - Part 2", the latest addition offers a nice transition with a very familiar opening theme and style till the title put the film into gears into the past; with composer James Newton Howard's way of introducing the shift with a new theme whilst at the same tone. As Lord Voldemort was the hovering threat in Harry Potter's timeline, the second darkest wizard Gellert Grindelwald is the hovering threat to the wizarding world, disappeared without a trace. Coincidentally as there are growing dangers in the wizarding world, the wizarding community is on the risk of being exposed in New York 1926 as mysterious destructions been going on throughout the streets.

Meanwhile, our new main protagonist Newt Scamander (Eddie Redmayne) is on an expedition to research and rescue magical creatures, carrying along his leather case that consists a magical dimension of creatures he's rescued and discovered. He's unaware of the rising tension on the New York streets, till he got himself into a chain of events that dragged him into the mess after bumping into the unsuspecting No-Maj Jacob Kowalski (Dan Fogler) who accidentally released a few beasts out of the case. This spike attracted former Auror Tina Goldstein (Katerine Waterson), as an opportunity to get her old role back, but it also attracted Percival Graves (Colin Farrell), the director of the Magical Congress of USA who was currently investigating the mysterious destructions and finds newcomer Newt's unauthorized appearance suspicious next to Tina's joining in.

"Fantastic Beasts" is the first of the proposed five-film prequel series; posed to expand the wizarding world as Newt garners knowledge that soon builds up into the textbook. With that in mind, the first installment resulted to be an expositional film by how character-driven it is and how the overall plot goes from Newt recovering his creatures to the mysterious destructive occurrences till they intersects towards the climax. It's a reasonable chance when attempting to further explore whilst expanding a familiar world. Speaking of which, your familiarity of the magical world of Harry Potter grew after each films of the original series, and you're experienced as it's not a school-sucked-into-a-crisis film as it goes beyond that former base. With that, this film is actually a separation to the Harry Potter films in a style of a spin-off with the same magical characteristic, in contrast to the other prequels of other big-time franchises.

As the first installment of a series, it's understandable that it's more an exposition that's mostly character-driven, which is under narrative cases a flaw when it's the main focus. But the only flaw, at a few, the character-driven element brought is that it fuels the aspectual predictability when putting the pieces together before the revelation like you know that the two storylines would eventually intersect later in the film. Another flaw to the element is the few shortcoming moments that seems to take an easy route when can't decide to solve easily or in a realistic route that could result in a lingering flow that could probably go longer than it needs to be. It's a cinematic conflict that this film made itself to be an example of.

Nonetheless, J.K. Rowling's debut as a screenwriter to adapt a canon textbook to the silver screen, skipping the literature process like the Harry Potter books that bolstered her name to the public. This isn't the only time she'd skipped literature to adapting her magical world in a different format as she'd written "Harry Potter and the Cursed Child" onto the stage. Considering how expositional this film is, Rowling's writing shows this is the first fifth of the "Fantastic Beasts" filmic novel, proving that the writing is recognizably-experienced - formula-wise of the whole. To regular cinephiles who prefer the film format over literature, they would find the film's writing decent, acceptable. But to those who read the books and seen the films, they would probably find it exceptional, which is the true value that was intentioned with understanding when asked.

As part of the reunion that the film formed for the crew, the director of the last four Harry Potter films, David Yates, returned to the Wizarding World with his direction being a culmination, yet scaled-down, of his previous directions in the films. The reason it was commented as scaled-down is because of its contrast to how epic and masterful "Deathly Hallows - Part 2" was when talking about the tone and visuals within a different environment that's between the levels of "Order of the Phoenix" and "Deathly Hallows - Part 1.".

As magical the film is with the visionary writing from the author herself and the reprised direction that continues the constant enjoyment level of the original films, with some exceeding, it goes the same with the human body that's the beneficial talents of the cast. Their performances were generally well done, with the standout being Redmayne as the new protagonist of focus.

Unlike the prequels to Star Wars and Lord of the Rings, this prequel to the Harry Potter franchise provides a separate form of entertainment at its own magic towards the difference in the writing's pace and direction at a reasonable start, while still continuing the known, experienced elements. "Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them" is at a decent, promising start when understanding the way of writing a novel. But individually as a film with the "execution" being flawed at a low minimum albeit understanding its position, the entertaining magic still lives on into fresh territory, with a probable ranking between the early Harry Potter films. (B+).