Newt (Redmayne) is a magizoologist, who goes to great pains to protect the wondrous beasts of the magical world. Set in the 1920s, the Hogwarts graduate travels to New York City and quickly loses track of many of the creatures he's set out to protect.
Through a comedy of errors, he connects with a muggle baker (Dan Fogel) who accidentally sees too much and must be (at least temporarily) brought along for the ride. The two encounter magical sisters, Tina (Waterston) and Queenie (Alison Sudol), who are fond of the pair, though Tina's intention is to turn Newt in (she's an investigator in the magical congress).
Along the way they are confronted by evil in villains played by Samantha Morton, Colin Farrell and Johnny Depp, respectively. There's a lot of action, but not a whole lot of substance.
A few specific things bugged me:
- At one point, Queenie flirts by saying that the baker "slays" her. Pretty sure the slang for that term has only been around for about a decade, if that.
- The set design for the New York of the 1920s is gorgeous. We barely see it.
- "Fantastic Beasts" is in the title, but they're only really the star in the very beginning and toward the end. I found the film overall to be creature-deficient.
Aside from that, the pace was way too slow, but that's probably because they're greedily squeezing five books out of one novella.
The performances are great, and the supernatural elements are well done But overall the film lacks the special... dare I say... magic... of the Potter series.
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