Potter prequel falls short of fantastic
Rowling’s Potter prequel isn’t far from Fantastic, but even magic can’t lift its heavy plot
It’s been more than five years since we had a new Harry Potter movie, with all the excitement that breeds in fans of the series and British actors’ agents. The newest isn’t exactly a Potter film, though it does name-check Hogwarts, Albus Dumbledore, house-elves and the family Lestrange.
But we’re in new territory here, with the clock rolled back to 1926, and the setting moved to pre-Depression New York, full of rising skyscrapers, motorcars and enough tangled skeins of plot to power a quartet of sequels. (Fortunately, since that’s exactly how many the novelist-turned-screenwriter J.K. Rowling has promised: Clear your calendars from now to 2024.)
The main storyline follows Newt Scamander, whose study and conservation of magical animals takes him to the United States on a mission of wildlife repatriation. As played by Eddie Redmayne, the taciturn Newt comes across as something of a reclusive Doctor Who type, no doubt aided by the scarf, the long coat, the dapper demeanour and a briefcase that is much, much bigger on the inside.
Newt’s time in the Big Apple is complicated when he crosses paths with Jacob Kowalski (Dan Fogler), who just wants to open a pastry shop. Jacob is a muggle, or no-maj in the U.S. dialect, or not a wizard for anyone who knows nothing about Rowling’s world and is somehow still reading this review. Jacob’s confection-filled briefcase is almost the twin of Newt’s. Can’t imagine anything going wrong there ...
Newt loses several of his chimeras — which, true to form, can be described in chimerical terms. There’s an erumpent (half rhino, half hippo), a bowtruckle (half praying mantis, half Groot), and a niffler (half platypus, half platypus, but not the same platypus). There’s also a creature that grows to fill available space. I think it’s called a deadline. There might also be one in your garage.
So Newt is busy rounding up his errant animals, while dealing with a suspicious magical investigator named Porpentina Goldstein (Katherine Waterston) and her ditzy sister Queenie (Alison Sudol). Queenie can read most people’s minds, but has trouble
with British ones.
Capture-the-beasts might be enough plot for most movies (it worked in Jumanji), but Rowling has included a number of additional storylines, making for a needlessly messy tale. There’s a madman on the loose, name of Gellert Grindelwald and played by Johnny Depp in one of his “wait-is-that-him?-oh-yes-it-is!” roles. There’s also an anti-magical society, headed up by Samantha Morton, determined to finish what they started in 1692 Salem.
Colin Farrell plays Percivel Graves, head of security for MACUSA, the Magical Congress of the United States of America. Carmen Ejogo is the president of the same group. And Ezra Miller plays a troubled youth named Credence, if you can believe it. He sports the black bowl cut favoured by all those in the wizarding world who are evil, or maybe just misunderstood.
All these characters swirl around New York, creating more havoc than anything until King Kong shows up in ’33. And while Newt is ostensibly the hero, it’s really Jacob the everyman/baker who gives viewers a window on the film’s world. His goggle-eyed gaze recalls that of Daniel Radcliffe in the opening chapter of the Potter years.
Alas, he’s not enough of an anchor for these wild narrative seas. The film is determined to do so much, introduce so many, and wow with such abundance that viewers may feel more fatigue than wonderment by the time its two-plus hours are done. Even director David Yates, who helmed the final four films of the Potter series, can’t quite rein everything in.
The rest of the time I found my attention wandering, sometimes right out of the movie. For instance, why are wands in 1926 handled like pistols? And how is it that the characters in Fantastic Beasts are able to apparate themselves all over the five boroughs, when Potter and friends will have to make do with brooms, floo powder and portkeys?
But with four more movies coming, there’s plenty of time to answer such questions, and even tidy up some of the hanging threads left at the end of Fantastic Beasts.
There’s even room enough for this new series to find its footing and perhaps even achieve excellence. It wouldn’t take a magic spell to tweak this story and make it truly fantastic.