This review of Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them is spoiler free

*** (3/5)

NOT LONG AFTER director James Mangold announced that his new film Logan won't be much of a CGI f**kathon and will have a lot of action to dominate the story, author and first time screenwriter J.K. Rowling announced that Fantastic Beasts will be a series of five just to try and match the previous of her adaptations; though you have to credit her for the extraordinary skill of adapting a big screen spin off/prequel/extended universe, not too long after the previous big screen adaptation from her novels lasting a total of eight films. This story originally published in 2001 by Rowling and has the names and habitats of around 85 different magical beasts, it focuses on former Hogwarts student turned scatterbrained friendly magizoologist Newt Scamander and his adventures and misadventures of finding and catching these critters around the 1920s.

Fantastic Beasts' story opens promisingly with our hero Newt Scamander (Eddie Redmayne) stepping off the ship in Gatsby-era New York in 1926, while he is there he meets with no-maj short for no-magic Jacob Kowalski (Dan Fogler) who conveniently has the same briefcase as Newt except Newt's is filled with the many habitats of his magical beasts, and Jacob's is not then they are met by Tina short for Porpetina Goldstein (Katherine Waterston) one of the members of the MACUSA (Magical Congress of the United States of America) and it is her job to investigate any unregistered wizard who comes through the city. Until a few beasts set themselves free from Newt's briefcase and a whole plethora of dark forces try to take it off him. But what could be wrong with this? Unfortunately like the first Harry Potter it has a few things wrong with it. Firstly the screenplay by first time screenwriter J.K. Rowling is a little muddled and spends too much time with trying to put on some funnier dialogue for the different characters. Secondly, the film spends too much of its time constantly building the wizarding world and the muggle world surrounding it, be that as it may it's beautiful and done well but it's not necessary.

There are couple of new villains introduced one being the shrewd Percival Graves (Colin Farrell) one of the more senior members of the MACUSA who doesn't really take no for an answer as he is trying to catch Newt as he thinks he is a bad influence to the magic world. The second being Credence Barebone (Ezra Miller) who could essentially be seen as the new Lord Voldemort he is an adopted child of the wizard loathing Mary Lou (Samantha Morton), who constantly makes his life miserable as she tries to take over him. Credence is a rather person who has a very strong power overtaking and it is Newt Scamander's job to find that power and put it back where it belongs, unfortunately while he tries he goes through some mass difficulty as not only is there a horrendous dark force trying to take over the world but he also has to outrun Percival Graves who doesn't much like Newt as soon as he meets him.

Later, when Newt is trying to catch the beasts that have come loose each scene is dedicated to catching them but while it's done well and beautifully created by the FX team and it's nice to see this included, they tend to drag and take a while to warm up to each of them and take a while settle in trying to figure out where it is going. There are a couple of fun moments for example the no-maj Jacob being introduced to the magical habitats of his beasts, and also Newt performing a mating dance to one of the more larger beasts which isn't commonly something you would see from an Oscar winner but it is fun to see, but unfortunately other than that there isn't much going for Fantastic Beasts also there is the Thunderbird named Frank which makes a convenient pet but also manages to reduce everything that Newt has done wrong.

Despite some of the scenes being dragged, the constant world building and the muddled screenplay this makes for a decent adaptation of yet another Rowling novel featuring some rather fantastical beasts ranging from very tiny to extremely large, that has some fun throughout some good CGI beasts created them with the image of the FX team it still has some magic at its heart.

VERDICT: While constantly concentrating too much on the beautiful world building, this makes for a decent adaptation with some rather fantastical beasts, decent performances that still has some magic left at its heart.

6/10 6 points to hufflepuff