For fans of the fantastic

Rating: 8/10 (16 January 2017)

Small disclaimer: I was never a huge fan of the Harry Potter books or movies. I think I was maybe just a little bit too old when they came out, because I really like fantasy and I tried very hard to like them. Read three books and got bored, watched two movies and got bored.
That's why I was surprised to like Fantastic Beasts so much. A large part of that is due to Eddie Redmayne, who is simply brilliant in his role as Newt Scamander, the wizard obsessed with magical beasts and protecting them. Reminded me a little of Gerald Durrell, whose books I read over and over again growing up (or maybe Steve Irwin, if you've never heard of Gerald Durrell). Socially awkward and distracted, it is delightful to watch him become confident and authoritative when interacting with the beasts he loves so much.
His story is quite a simple one, trying to catch the beasts that escaped while on his way to Arizona, but it plays out against a much larger backdrop of political intrigue as suspicion and paranoia build in the wizards' community, who are deathly (and reasonably) afraid of having their existence exposed to ordinary humans.