FANTASTIC BEASTS
Newt Kid On The Block
Does the Potter spin-off bring more of the magic?
released OUT NOW! 2016 | 12 | Blu-ray/dVd/download Director david Yates Cast eddie redmayne, Katherine Waterston, dan Fogler, alison sudol, Colin Farrell
While researching his role as “magizoologist” Newt Scamander, Eddie Redmayne met with real-life zoologists, experts and trackers so he could learn to adopt the stances they use when stalking animals – it’s all in the way you hold your feet, apparently. This dedication is clear to see in his performance in Fantastic Beasts And Where To Find Them, but there’s something else Redmayne should have been focusing on: his diction.
You don’t have to be hard of hearing to find Newt difficult to decipher. Hell, even with the sound turned up, he’s such a mumbly nightmare the film might as well be a BBC drama... It’s a damn shame, because while we understand that Newt is supposed to be shy, it’s tough enough to understand words like “Erumpent”, “Occamy” and “Demiguise” without them being delivered to the floor and not your ears.
Still, that’s what subtitles are for, we suppose. And there’s no denying that, murmurings aside, Fantastic Beasts is great fun. But how could it not be? The Harry Potter universe is an inventive joy, and transplanting it to ’20s New York adds a fresh frisson as we meet a whole new society of witches and warlocks with their own rules (Muggles are known as “No-Majs”, for example).
The core of the film, however, lies with the sweet, likeable – if not entirely audible – Newt as he loses a magical briefcase that unleashes a horde of weird critters on the Big Apple. Teaming up with Yank No-Maj Jacob (Dan Fogler), former Auror Tina (Katherine Waterston) and her sister Queenie (Alison Sudol, who plays her as a psychic Marilyn Monroe from Some Like It Hot), Newt tracks down the creatures before they destroy the city. There’s also a dark wizard on the loose, and a Salemthemed cult who want magic eradicated from the world, natch.
It’s no exaggeration to say that the effects are sublime: not only are some of the magical creatures fabulous – the swirling, pulsing Obscurus is jaw-dropping – but the New York backdrops are stunningly realistic. The goldstealing, platypus-like Niffler is the best creature (“If you don’t love the Niffler there’s something wrong with you,” says JK Rowling, and we agree) but some, like the Erumpents, overstay their time on screen, and the chases involved in capturing some of these beasts are a tad repetitive.
But at no point are you bored, exactly; and Redmayne’s charms, contrasted with the steely edge of
It’s no exaggeration to say that the effects are sublime
Colin Farrell’s dodgy Auror, Graves (complete with fabulous swirly coat), provide enough spark to offset all the silliness. Redmayne has certainly proved there’s life in his Newt, and it’ll be good to meet him again in the sequels. Let’s just hope he speaks up.
Extras “It’s like putting the band back together again!” grins director David Yates, of working on Fantastic Beasts. And, as you find out during the Blu-ray’s first featurette (“Before Harry Potter: A New Era Of Magic Begins”, 15 minutes), nobody was more excited about this than Rowling herself. Always an eloquent interviewee, she explains how lovely it was to work on a story with other people for a change (“It was utterly different to being a novelist, where you’re alone for a year”), and when she talks of how bizarre it was to see her ideas come to life you can’t help but feel jealous.
There are 19 featurettes on the Blu-ray and, while most are under five minutes long, they add up to around 105 minutes of delicious goodies. Colleen Atwood’s insights on her costuming, for example, are fascinating – Ezra Miller reveals that even his underwear is from the ’20s – and the segments on the creatures are superb; who knew so many were also puppets? The Niffler’s personality was based on a honey badger, by the way.
Also included are 11 deleted scenes, adding up to 14 minutes: nothing too radical was chopped out, although Jacob and Queenie’s adorable relationship gets a bit more screentime. NB: buy the DVD and you only get two of the shorter featurettes (eight minutes in total). Jayne Nelson
Newt’s wand handle is made of a fossilised squid (belemnite), to show his affinity for the natural world.