Fantastic Beasts and Where To Find Them

[thewayne]

We got home about an hour ago from seeing a Thursday sneak, and it was quite good. It was a nice departure from the Potter series because it was not based on YA material. I enjoyed the Potter series, both movies and books, but they hold little re-view/read value for me. Fantastic Beasts, on the other hand, I liked quite a bit more. And fortunately my wife is a major Potter geek and she was able to fill in the things that I didn't recall precisely.

Casting was excellent, as were the production values, though there were a couple of shots that felt a little distorted to me. We were on the far right edge: I'll definitely see it again, and this time I'll sit more in the center and see if it still feels distorted to me. The depiction of NYC felt very good for a mid-1924 setting, and it was fantastic seeing the different way that the American magic organization differs from England's. We don't see the American equivalent of Hogwarts, at least in this film, perhaps it'll be seen later.

Apparently it is currently being planned as a five movie arc to be released every other year, which means they have to be in pre-production for #2 right now and the stars traveling promoting the movie will probably be back to work within a couple of months to get the next one out.

My wife felt that a couple of songs in the movie had a very 'Rowlingesque' feel to them, I can't really comment on that. We were speculating how much input Rowling had: she's listed as an Executive Producer, and clearly had a large amount of control over script production, but I'm sure they had someone capable of overriding her who was more of an expert in the art and science of film production.

Oh, and the opening did a fantastic job of framing the movie. I'm looking forward to getting it on DVD to freeze-frame it and see what else I can gleen.

Definitely recommended if you liked the Potter series of books and movies. I think it's a good film in its own regard, I also think that you could take someone who doesn't know boo about Potter, sit them down in front of this one, and they'd enjoy it.

Comments

[cp.livejournal.com]

Good to read! The one professional review I've seen so far was generally positive, but said Newt Scamander (Eddie Redmayne) was a pretty annoying and almost-unlikeable character. I still want to see it, though, and I was pleased to hear the planned 3 films had become 5. I hope they get better as they go!

[thewayne.livejournal.com]

I think Eddie did an excellent job of Newt. The character is very focused on the animals that he's husbanding, but also quite capable outside of his specialty.

I just read through the Wikipedia entry for the film. Early on, it says it will be a trilogy. Later, twice, it says that it will be a five film series, including an announcement last month by Rowling that it will be five.

[silveradept]

The depiction of Magical New York tweaked me a couple times with how it threw me from the story, but those things are mostly things I object to in the extended Potterverse (like "no-maj") or don't think translate well (like the Auror Investigative Division all evoking a similar outfit and seeming like Pinkertons more than a police outfit.)

The movie was nice, though. And the freeze-frame is definitely on my list of things to do.