Review | Film review: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them – J.K. Rowling magic
Eddie Redmayne and Colin Farrell star in what may seem like a Potter prequel with the same awe and wonder, but it’s self-contained with more adult themes
4/5 stars
Scripted by Rowling – her first such credit – Fantastic Beasts feels like a more adult Potter film, but one that boasts the same sense of awe and wonder.
Eddie Redmayne plays Newt Scamander, a former Hogwarts pupil and the (future) author of the eponymous text (published by Rowling as a compendium in 2001). Fantastic Beasts is set before this book, with Newt arriving in New York, circa 1926, with a suitcase full of wild and wonderful creatures after an exploratory globe-trotting expedition.
With magic pushed underground in America, Rowling creates a politicised backdrop immediately – notably via the Samantha Morton-led New Salem Philanthropic Society, campaigning against sorcery.