Movie universes are the hot new thing this decade. Comic books (good and bad, and somewhere in the middle) have them. Teen love triangles have them. Magic had a great one, but our bespectacled hero there defeated his snake like foe. Fantastic Beasts hopes to awaken the magical universe again, Finding Them in America. The results are hit and miss, but mostly I was excited to see wizards and sleight of hand again.
JK Rowling herself wrote this screenplay for Fantastic Beasts, deriving the story from a book reference in the Potter Series. The author of the book is Newt Scamander (Eddie Redmayne), a magical animal whisperer in the WWII era hoping to find some refuge in America. However, some of his beasts escape, forcing Newt to cross paths with Aurors Tina (Katherine Waterston) and Graves (Colin Farrell) of the Ministry of Magic in the US. In addition, because of quick evasion, Newt grabs the suitcase of Kowalski (Dan Fogler), a no-mag (Muggle is better; essentially a normal human) who quickly discovers his mistake. The timing could not be worse either, as anti-wizard sentiment is being pushed politically by Mary Lou (Samantha Morton) and Credence Barebone (Ezra Miller), bringing the conflict to a head.
JK Rowling’s magical universe is about as amazing a world as could exist; any idea could become reality for a director here. Rowling teams up with David Yates, a 4-time Potter Director, to transition the franchise from the UK to the USA. Some of her ideas give the American setting distinction. The culture of fear and conflict with wizards and humans gives the screenplay a healthy undercurrent of the current American political landscape, and provides some incisive commentary on oppressive regimes. The beasts themselves are ones Tim Burton or Guillermo Del Toro could get behind. The montage of feeding/caring for each creature is grotesquely beautiful, easily a highlight for the movie. These new touches coupled with the audience favorites like wizard battles, muggles playing with magic, and parallel worlds give Fantastic Beasts a frolicking fun and sometimes poignant tale to start the universe up again.
However, Rowling leaves some large holes that threaten to derail the entire enterprise. Fantastic Beasts drifts too close into “The Hobbit” territory; this movie tries to cram too many references from the Potterverse into this world. As a result, the movie tonally drifts too much toward the Potter story when this one is its own cute little tale. The political scheming and American magical bureaucracy would have been fun on its own, as would Newt’s cute tale of trying to collect misunderstood creatures in a world scared by them. Together, the movie just doesn’t mesh well, and you feel nothing at the end. Even worse though, is I think Rowling picked the wrong lead: Dan Fogler’s story is much more interesting. Harry Potter’s outsider view to the world of magic helped provide the wonder for his story; watching Kowalski, an adult, wrap his head around a world he never knew existed, and his romantic exploits with Tina’s telepathic sister (Alison Sudol), provided the best pieces of this new world we know nothing about. In addition, Newt Scamander is just not that interesting (not Eddie Redmayne’s fault, he’s fine). We’ve seen misunderstood characters before in films, and Newt isn’t written prickly enough to warrant his loner status. The man is entirely charming, and not once did I think this guy had trouble making friends. If Rowling continues to write screenplays for these movies, I hope she ditches this character and just sticks with the American world of magic, keeping it general.
Fantastic Beasts doesn’t rock the boat to the point where people should jump off their broomsticks, but it also doesn’t add something special that we were hoping for. Maybe that’s asking too much of a creative team, but when your mind is free of any constraints, I feel little sorrow if your imagination is restricted. Come on Ms. Rowling, you don’t want to lose your magical savant status to Benedict Cumberbatch and Bald Tilda Swinton do you? I eagerly await your answer.