Much like “The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey” and its two sequels, “Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them” falls flat when compared to its beloved predecessor. While comparing an eight-movie franchise to a single movie may seem harsh, the problems with “Beasts” extend far beyond the big shoes it didn’t fill.
The movie opens with a series of magical newspapers that appear and disappear in a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it fashion. You better pay attention though, because this is all that sets up the infamous dark wizard Grindelwald, the villain of what J.K. Rowling has already said will be a five-movie franchise. These expositional rags also provide the only background for several more of the movie’s numerous subplots, including magical restrictions on beasts and a human anti-witchcraft movement.
After this display, the movie hard-cuts to Newt Scamander, the movie’s protagonist. Newt, played by Eddie Redmayne, is an odd protagonist. His character is shown to be intelligent, with an extreme knowledge of the myriad fantastic creatures he carries with him in a magical suitcase and the respect of name-dropped Dumbledore, but he makes numerous, needless mistakes.
Newt arrives in 1926 New York City with zero knowledge about the laws there and carries a broken time-bomb of a suitcase from which he accidentally releases magical creatures multiple times in the movie, never learning from his mistakes. Some of this can be chalked up to an apparent, unspecified social disorder, which Redmayne subtly conveys very well using mostly body language. Unfortunately, a good performance doesn’t necessarily make a good character. Newt is more frustrating than fun to follow, despite having the potential for more depth.
By dropping the audience so suddenly into Newt’s bumbling journey through New York City, “Beasts” fails to provide a reason to care about the character, a problem that extends to the rest of the cast. His female counterpart, Tina (Katherine Waterston), has an equally lacking introduction and the rest of her background is given in off-handed dialogue. Oh, she has dead parents. Oh, she’s a recently demoted Auror. Oh, she has some kind of barely explained history with the anti-magic movement subplot. Cool. Just like Newt, it is hard to care for Tina, who seems so empty of personality or detail.
The only characters who manage to have any personality are Tina’s sister Queenie and Jacob, a “no-maj,” the American equivalent of a muggle. The two have a fun Romeo and Juliet, wizard and non-wizard sort of dynamic going on that actually comes across very sweet at times, but suffers a huge and needless setback at the end of the movie.
With this sweet relationship as the only exception, “Beasts” lacks any of the wonderment that a Harry Potter movie — or a magical movie in general — needs. Spells are performed without any fanfare or weight. Characters fling hundreds of spells throughout the movie, but none feel like they have any magic to them. The effects are muted, as is the New York backdrop, the movie’s main villain and the beasts themselves.
For a movie titled “Fantastic Beasts,” there are only maybe five or six featured CGI beasts and, of these, only maybe two are memorable. The movie does have a great scene where Newt and company explore his magical zoo, filled to the brim with interesting creatures, but it is brief. An adventure through ‘20s New York chasing the creatures shown or hinted at would probably make a good movie. “Beasts” is sadly not that movie.
“Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them” is a movie that pulls off an amazing magic trick; it is a movie where simultaneously too much and not much at all happens. It will likely leave longtime fans disappointed and people new to the Harry Potter universe confused. If you are looking for the next great Harry Potter story, look elsewhere.
