★★★★ | Fantastic Beasts and Where To Find Them
You cannot help but wonder how J.K Rowling’s Wizarding World (writing her first original screenplay) will work without Harry Potter and his crew.
Well, given that it is based in another country and about 54 years before Harry Potter was born, it was pretty easy to forget about him within the first 20 mins because you fall completely in love with Newt Scamander, the socially awkward and shy wizard, played by Eddie Redmayne, and his No-Maj friend (the new American term for a Muggle) Jacob Kowalski, played by Dan Fogler.
But all is not as shiny as a bag of Galleons; some of the editing with the action scenes leaves them loud, aggressive and hard to follow. I Imagine seeing this in the IMAX or/and in 3D could be pretty intense, but not in a good way.
The real screen stealer is Samantha Morton, who plays Mary Lou, a leader of the New Salem Philanthropic Society, an extremist group that exposed and eradicated witchcraft in the 1920. Her performance echoed the recent rise of the right wing in the USA, characterised by fear of change and their perceptions of ungodliness.
Overall this is a great entry into this magical world and shows that Rowling and David Yates (director of the final four Harry Potter Films as well as Fantastic Beasts) are Hollywood gold.
