CAPSULE: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (2016, Dir. David Yates)

Is there somewhere to lodge a complaint with the studios regarding their misguided approach to building tent pole franchises? All this pre-planning is getting out of hand. Too much groundwork, too little attention to the excitement at hand.

J.K. Rowling and Warner Bros. have plotted a five film cycle in the “Potterverse”, which they’ve just kicked off with Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. And they’ve got five films’ worth of narrative hooks built in to prove how serious they are.

This, of course, makes for a ridiculously flabby film. Luckily, Eddie Redmayne and his incorrigible charisma is on the case. As Newt Scamander, saviour and transporter of an entire menagerie of mystical creatures, he charms his way through 1920s New York City on the lookout for the escaped beasties of the film’s title, opening up another magical vista on Rowling’s wizarding world.

As you’d expect of a film based around a fictional school textbook, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them is an episodic affair, at least until it finds its footing. There are lots of delightful, hi-jinks-packed, scenes in Newt’s introduction to New York and to Kowalski (Dan Fogler), the unsuspecting No-Maj (Muggle), who gets embroiled in an unlikely (and quite touching) friendship, and Tina (Katherine Waterston), the disgraced auror who’s hoping to get back onto the wizarding ladder.

Franchise returning director, David Yates, deals well with the screwball wonder that makes up the film’s whimsical core, and the playground set up by the Potter production crew is expectedly top notch. He’s also at home with the darker backdrop, which sees, Percival Graves (Colin Farrell), the Director of Magical Security at MACOSA (Magical Congress of the United States of America), leading the investigation into the whereabouts of wizard nasty, Grindelwald. But, like I said, it is not long before all this expands beyond the bounds of this first film, with multiple bit parts signalling their clear importance purely through casting decisions (Ezra Miller as a downtrodden anti-maj fantatic and John Voigt as a newspaper mogul). It is not hard to anticipate the film’s ever-darkening arc.

Hopefully, Rowling can keep Fantastic Beasts’ head in the clouds for longer than her previous excursion into this world. It is certainly more fun when it is there and Redmayne is the perfect guide. They’ve pulled together a great cast (pertinent cameo excepted) and it should be a reasonable ride. Especially if Rowling can tighten the narrative a smidge.

Oh, wait… that’d take some real magic.

★★★☆

Trailer: