Fantastic beasts and where to find them.

Released today in the UK. You can imagine the build up and hype to it because it is another wizarding film, another part of the 'Harry Potter' franchise because any Potter nerd will tell you that this is the text book that they use in their care of magical creatures lessons throughout the entire franchise.

I don't want to give away too much about the film because I do advise you all to go and see it. It is NOT a Harry Potter film and is actually not what you are expecting at all. Yes, the twist was what I was expecting but there was quite a lot which I couldn't have picked up from the trailers. Most of the plot can be put together from watching the trailers but there was a different type of magic and my fear of them reaching the non-verbal stage of magic where they don't bother to actually say any spells at all was not necessary because they keep all the spells that we learnt from the previous magical films.


Eddie Redmayne took the lead and carried on the idea of British actors taking main roles in this franchise. With the film set in New York we had to make way for some American actors to enter the setup as well but they did it with style. What this film had that made it noticeably different from the previous magical films was no unnecessary extra action (like Dragons ruining the castle just because they can) and it had just the right amount of animation (which even though it is getting better is still not quite at the level that it needs to be- how is it that J.K.Rowling is about 5 years behind everyone else in terms of animation??).

It is easy to enjoy this film, never are you on the edge of your seat and it has a dark feel to it but because there is not a large amount of action and it is more about the beasts, admiring their beauty and the little bits of comedy that are actually in the film it is much easier to just pleasantly enjoy it in the cinema next to you without jumping up and down or shouting at the screen.

The ending of the film left no opening for another film but with the rumour of five films being made I can see how that would possible after watching this film. The lack of action may have been down to it actually being a textbook and a lack of realistic material (although that never stops anyone in film business) or it may have been down to their being another 4 films scheduled, assuming that this film does well in the box office. However, due to the huge play on the character of Grindelwald there has to be more films, there has to be more into his character, his turn from friend of Dumbledore (albeit when they were younger and more foolish) to feared wizard and the ideal enemy, example for Voldemort.

Just make sure to go and see it. It is difficult to review without spoiling it and as it has only just made it to the UK I don't want to spoil it. I thought that Redmayne was impressive but it would be good to see if his character can development and give him a chance to prove himself, his character was very trapped inside one emotion throughout this film.