Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them

(Warning: contains spoilers for Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them)

Not to state the obvious, but the Harry Potter franchise is massive.  To the point that people who have never read the books, and never seen the films (and I'm sure there must be one or two.  Possibly waking up from comas or something) will have heard the first 8 notes of Hedwig's Theme and thought "Oh, that's Harry Potter" without necessarily knowing how they know.  May have heard and understood some of the following words: Hogwarts.  Muggles.  Quidditch.  They're all in common parlance now, in the same way I know "heeeeeere's Johnny" is from The Shining despite the fact I've never seen it.

Pauses for a moment at the inevitable outrage of that last sentence

I'll get round to it.

I have read the Harry Potter books.  I have watched the Harry Potter films.  I have been to Harry Potter studios.  So it was with great delight that I skipped off to see Fantastic Beasts.  And, if I'm perfectly honest, the biggest surprise was that I wasn't that bothered by it. 

Skinny book from which this enormous film was made

That is not to say that it's not enjoyable, and that there aren't good bits.  I'm not even sure why I wasn't taken with it.  The only concern that I can articulate is that it doesn't feel like a film in its own right.  Now, I get that this will become part of a series.  And I understand that there is a world to build, and characters to introduce and themes to explain before we get to the apex of this spin-off.  But it feels like there's a little too much of "oh-we'll-explain-this-in-the-next-film".  I want to understand what I'm looking at in this film.  Now.  And then the next films should build on those foundations.

Take the first Star Wars film (and this works for A New Hope, The Phantom Menace, or The Force Awakens).  They stand alone and their stories work (tenuous with Phantom Menace, but stick with me).  If none of the rest of the Episodes were made, those initial three would be fine.  The sequels build upon what's there and push the story on.  The same is true for the first Harry Potter films.  But for some reason, Fantastic Beasts seem to have gone for the "tune in next time, folks" approach, which works for television, but doesn't work for film.

On to the positives.  This film looks fantastic, and may well be enhanced by 3D (not something I say lightly) as critters skitter across the screen and sparks literally fly.  The Prohibition-Era feel works well to provide a sense of paranoia and subterfuge, where no one is quite sure whose side anybody is on.

For people new to Potter, it provides an "in".  You can see this film having never looked at Potter and have a perfectly good time.  But for the fans, there are tantalising glimpses into recognisable names and characters.  We see young Dumbledore, and there are musings about the Lestrange families - hints at the back stories to the older generations that feature in Harry's life at the end of the century.  In some ways, this is very comparable to Star Wars - we know what the future holds for some of these characters, but we don't yet know how they get there.

The Fantastic Beasts are, indeed, fantastic but my highest praise goes to Eddie Redmayne as Newt Scamander.  There's all sorts of influences present in his portrayal - the most obvious (to me) being Matt Smith's incarnation of the Doctor; all flailing limbs, and social awkwardness, hand rubbing and hunchedness, but can switch on incredible empathy and understanding in any given moment.  There's also hints of David Attenborough in there too, as he explains the creatures in his care and how best to treat them and understand their behaviour.  Flecks of Doctor Dolittle are peppered about too.
 

These two definitely do not influence each other.  Nope.

The budding relationship between Queenie (Alison Sudol) and Kowalski (Dan Fogler) has warmth and sweetness (perhaps fitting for a character who wants to run his own bakery), and Tina (Katherine Waterston) is a strong, independent female lead, who is getting on with her own storyline which just happens to intersect with Scamander's.  And with all that going on, I'm sorry I didn't love it more. 

But sometimes the magic just isn't there.