Fantastic Beasts and where to find them is a good addition to the line of Harry Potter films.
It has a very strong cast and great special effects. The characters are well written and likeable. It has the added bonus of being a magical historical costume drama – set in 1920s New York City.
I particularly liked the supporting cast of characters. Kowalski and Queenie have a lovely interaction, Colin Farrell is smoothly unpleasant as Graves.
It had lots of wonderfully inventive ideas and many of the fantastic beast are really fantastic. If I were to pick a fault, it would be that some of the set pieces were too big and too monumental because they reminded you of what they were, tableaus to show off their, admittedly very good, special effects. The storyline is quite slight but, because everything else about the film is so satisfying, it hardly matters.
The 3D was the best I have seen, it was clever without being intrusive. It is worth going to see this film in a big movie theatre because of this and in order to get the full impact of those special effects.
I have to say that I will be looking forward to the next one in this franchise.
The London Lark! 