Review: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (12A)

Set in prohibition era New York, around 70 years before the emergence of a certain boy wizard across the pond, J K Rowling’s new wizarding adventure may be full of allusions to the Harry Potter books and films (Hogwarts and Dumbledore both get a namecheck), but it never falls into the prequel trap of trying too hard to reverse-engineer a narrative to link up with what’s already out in the world.

From the opening credits – full of live-action newspaper headlines from the wizarding press – it’s clear that in making her screenwriting debut Rowling has paid tribute to the global nature of her phenomenon in the best way: by creating an intricately worked-out universe with scholarly precision. This time out her hero is a shy “magizoologist” called Newt Scamander (Eddie Redmayne) who has devoted his life to traversing the world studying the titular fantastic beasts with a view to protecting them from extinction. Arriving in New York with a magical suitcase full of field samples, it’s not long before he’s embroiled in chaos after some of the aforementioned creatures escape and start wreaking havoc on the muggle world, or “No-maj” world as New York’s wizarding community refers to its human inhabitants.

On general release.

By Alistair Harkness