A darker spin on the Harry Potter universe, in a visual feast and engaging cinema!

Rating: 8/10 (10 April 2017)

Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them is a beautiful film. It looks like a cross between an Edward Hopper painting and Raoul Walsh's gangster pictures of the 1940s but with a heavy dose of magic in the foreground to boot. To watch David Yates' film makes for a wonderful juxtaposition of styles akin to the finest steam-punk.
Set in 1920s New York, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them follows Newt Scamander (Eddie Redmayne, fresh from his Oscar win for The Theory of Everything) as he attempts to hunt down some mysterious monsters who threaten to unravel the secret magic community and user in tragedy.
As this is from the pen of Harry Potter novelist JK Rowling, you can expect an ensemble cast of friendly and shady characters interacting in their own world of intricate details that is as threatening as it is tempting. It's Garden of Eden stuff on a Hollywood scale - something that David Yates mastered in the final Harry Potter films he helm- ed.
In fact, it's a surprisingly dark affair with social satire undertones that border on Terry Gilliam territory (who would make an excellent choice of director for future films in the inevitable franchise).
The less you know about Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them going in, the better so I won't spoil the surprises for the sake of this review but I will say that if you enjoy well crafted fantasy with gorgeous production values and a twee tone, you can't go far wrong with this. But of course try to have patience because these types of films need a little more concentrated viewing then most other.