What a wand-erful world...
THE magic returns as JK Rowling again casts her spell over cinemas with a gripping Harry Potter spin-off. With no end of magic, monsters and Muggles, Fantastic Beasts is everything we could have hoped for – gripping and gorgeous to look at.
Inspired by Rowling’s book of the same name, the setting is 1920s New York where magical zoologist Newt Scamander (Eddie Redmayne) has arrived in search of creatures only those in the wizarding world can see.
He has spent his life collecting the endangered animals which he studies in a lab accessible only through his leather briefcase.
WINDOW MEETS TAXI DRIVER IN A SEARING LITTLE BRITISH URBAN DRAMA.
And what might have been a low-budget throwaway is enlivened by sharp writing, a deep understanding of guilt and redemption, and a sensational central performance by David Gyasi.
Gyasi – a name to be closely watched – is music journalist Andrew who, while too scared to leave his London flat after being beaten up, is forced to confront his agoraphobia when a neighbour is spotted being attacked.
Turning detective, he uncovers a conspiracy among the Oriental underworld, played out among the over-lit
But things go awry when down-on-his-luck baker Jacob Kowalski (Dan Fogler) opens the case and unwittingly unleashes Newt’s beasts on the Big Apple.
Teaming up with Jacob and witches Tina and Queenie (Katherine Waterston and Alison Sudol), Newt must round up stairways of north London.
Brit films are often stymied by low budgets, but Panic’s tiny outlay works in its favour the animals before they cause mayhem.
To add to the urgency, a band of fanatical No-Majs, the American version of Muggles, are hellbent on starting a war with the wizards.
While there’s no sign of Potter and his pals, the film is very as we’re forced to confront Andrew’s condition and its stifling claustrophobia.
Here’s a hero we can root for much part of the ‘Potterverse’ with enough in-jokes and references to the beloved series to delight fans.
Not that Fantastic Beasts is a movie designed solely for fantasy fanatics. The story is accessible to all.
While the film was actually shot in Britain, you wouldn’t know it with the streets of Manhattan perfectly recreated with speakeasies, tumbledown apartment blocks and half-built skyscrapers looking totally authentic. without ever being fully sure of what he’s about.
The dialogue is also razor sharp.