OVP: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (2016)

Film: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (2016)
Stars: Eddie Redmayne, Katherine Waterston, Dan Folger, Alison Sudol, Colin Farrell, Ezra Miller, Samantha Morton, Jon Voight
Director: David Yates
Oscar History: 2 nominations /1 win(Best Production Design, Costume*)
Snap Judgment Ranking: 3/5 stars

One of the most popular articles I've ever written on the blog came a few years ago when I decided to try to review all of the Harry Potter movies in one post.  In it, I confessed that my undying love for the Harry Potter universe made it difficult for me to objectively review the films.  I experienced the same encounter with The Hobbit a few years back, as the movies were good-but-not-landmarks like their predecessors, and totally unnecessary in the long scheme of things.  So I was genuinely curious when Fantastic Beasts came out if I would feel the same way.  Unlike The Hobbit, deeply connected to the prior movies, this film is almost completely outside of the realm of the following Harry Potter movies, with only a mention of Albus Dumbledore (as opposed to The Hobbit movies, which features Bilbo, Gandalf, Gollum, and Legolas back in action, so it's harder to break it off from LOTR).  What I found was that while I was charmed by the movies, this was surely not Harry Potter, and not nearly as good even when it comes to trying to look at the films based solely on their merits.

(Spoilers Ahead) The picture, much like how The Hobbit went with a lighter touch, with as much time spent on exploring the world of New York City's wizards as the many creatures discovered by one Mr. Newt Scamander (Redmayne), who is a befuddled but kind.  He's not the innately talented wizard that Harry Potter is, but instead more of a Neville Longbottom type crossed with perhaps a splash of Dumbledore's natural curiosity.  The movie unfolds with a growing worry about the rise of Gellert Grindelwald, a sort of predecessor to Voldemort, whom we know to be the love of a young Albus Dumbledore's life through interviews that Rowling has done since the book series was published.  As we move on, madness of course ensues with Newt's creatures causing much havoc throughout the city, him being accused of helping Grindelwald while it's actually Grindelwald (in disguise as Colin Farrell's Percival Graves) who is manipulating a powerful young wizard named Credence Barebone (Miller, and no, Rowling has not lost her gift for the bon mot moniker) who is behind all of the doom-and-gloom of the city.  The day is saved when Grindelwald is stopped, Newt leaves (but promises to return to see his new friend Tina), and we are given ample room for sequels as we know that Grindelwald will continue to find ways to menace in the future.

The movie has a few lovely touches.  The best part would surely be Alison Sudol's dreamy, charming Queenie, Tina's sister who becomes enamored with Newt's muggle (or No-Maj, as it were) friend Jacob.  Pretty much any scene she's in Sudol steals, and announces herself as the obvious fan favorite of this franchise.  I also quite liked the bizarreness of Samantha Morton's performance, which was so weirdly out-of-place and much heavier than the rest of the movie was trying to accomplish.  Rowling, responding to criticism of her world a bit too aggressively in the movie, occasionally throws out things that feel tacked-on or specifically placed to earn her praise (this is by-far the most "woke" of the Harry Potter pictures in terms of progressive politics), but making the world a bit darker, resembling in some ways the turns her last three books took, is perhaps the most welcome development.

Otherwise, though, I left appreciating the nostalgia it brought but wishing that Rowling had left her world alone.  The stretching and pulling of Harry Potter feels like it has hit its breaking point, meaning we're seeing things we once found special become too commodified and commercial, and the effects in this film feel less authentic to the world of Harry Potter and more geared toward an easy translation into an amusement park.  Outside of Queenie and the strange climactic scene where Morton's sadistic mother learns the truth about her child, there's nothing special here.  There's certainly nothing cool about the magic.  Both Redmayne and Waterston underplay their characters so dreadfully that they lack charisma, and really you don't want to spend more time with them.  And the fact that they traded Colin Farrell in for Johnny Depp as the future lead of the franchise is a pretty much unforgivable sin.  All-in-all, I can't promise I won't tune in again (my HP immunities being weak), but this was hardly worth re-opening the memory of Harry Potter so quickly.

Those are my thoughts on Fantastic Beasts, which bizarrely won the Best Costume Oscar and yet another citation for Stuart Craig, but can't really compete in any way, shape, or form with the original franchise.  What were your thoughts on the picture?  It wears more poorly in the memory than I expected (I originally gave it a three-star rating, and have stuck with that even if this review reads more like a 2-star one), but I'm curious for anyone who has seen the movie multiple times-does it hold up?  Share below!