Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them draws on Harry Potter's rich mythology to deliver a spinoff that dazzles with franchise-building magic all its own. Read critic reviews
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Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them videos
Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them: Blu-Ray Trailer
Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them: Trailer 2
Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them: Comic-Con Trailer
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Movie Info
The year is 1926, and Newt Scamander (Eddie Redmayne) has just completed a global excursion to find and document an extraordinary array of magical creatures. Arriving in New York for a brief stopover, he might have come and gone without incident, were it not for a No-Maj (American for Muggle) named Jacob, a misplaced magical case, and the escape of some of Newt's fantastic beasts, which could spell trouble for both the wizarding and No-Maj worlds.
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Rating: PG-13 (Some Fantasy/Action Violence)
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Genre: Fantasy, Adventure
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Original Language: English
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Director: David Yates
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Producer: David Heyman, J.K. Rowling, Steve Kloves, Lionel Wigram
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Writer: J.K. Rowling
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Release Date (Theaters): wide
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Release Date (Streaming):
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Box Office (Gross USA): $234.0M
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Runtime:
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Distributor: Warner Bros. Pictures
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Production Co: Heyday Films, Nvizible, Warner Bros. Pictures
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Sound Mix: Datasat, Dolby Atmos, Dolby Digital
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Aspect Ratio: Scope (2.35:1)
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View the collection: Harry Potter
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Critic Reviews for Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them
Audience Reviews for Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them
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This film is gorgeously looking and hilarious, has an interesting plot (though complicated at times), benefits from a talented cast, and works as a Harry Potter spin-off.
serge e Super Reviewer -
Though slightly less magical than the best of the Harry Potter film series, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them nonetheless re-establishes audiences in J.K. Rowling's wizarding world with a spun-off tale that's at times, well, fantastical. In this PG-13-rated fantasy adventure, writer Newt Scamander (Eddie Redmayne) finds a treasure trove of briefcase-dwelling beasties unleashed in 1930s New York City. So far as adapting a 90-page encyclopedic primer into a 2 and 1/4 hour fantasy full of engaging characters and dazzling spectacle, Fantastic Beasts definitely deserves high marks. Thin on dramatic material but rich in the kind of detailed minutia that often supplemented Tolkien's epic works, Rowling's guidebook certainly doesn't seem like an obvious jumping off point. Considering that the guidebook began life as a prop in a single scene from 2001's Harry Potter and The Sorcerer's Stone (she turned the prop book into an actual book while the film was in post-production), however, a feature film as the next logical step actually starts to make sense. The result mostly works and works exceedingly well. What falls in the film's favor is the fact that the author chose this project as her screenwriting debut. Rowling's rich imagination serves the project well, as she colors outside the lines of the Potter-verse while keeping one foot firmly planted in familiar (to some, beloved) territory. Set 70 years before Harry reads Scamander's book, this American-set period piece opens up a new wizarding world rife with sequel potential. Also, unlike with the mega-bestselling Potter book series, moviegoers don't necessarily know where this adventure is headed...necessarily, mind you. Therein lies one of the few actual rubs. The main plot comes to a very predictable conclusion, though the numerous sub-plots unquestionably tantalize audiences for the inevitable follow-ups. The main character also presents viewers with a bit of a rub. The supporting cast proves so rich with personality and character (Dan Fogler refuses to let the often buffoonish best friend role drift into cliche, Katherine Waterson and Alison Sudol invest two very different sisters with enough distinct verve to fill a Hogwarts class, and Colin Farrell makes for a fearful but sympathetic villain) that the reserved Scamander almost gets swept under the magic carpet. Thanks to Oscar winner Redmayne's (The Theory of Everything) masterly use of expression and tone, however, a little thankfully goes a long way. The actor slowly turns the quiet magi-zoologist into a very eccentric - but at the same time heroic - underdog. But let's not forget the titular characters. Brilliantly realized with wand-waving by some top designers and computer animators, the missing Beasts are, if not all Fantastic, pretty damn near to Fantastic (the Niffler, a platypus-like mammal who hilariously purloins shiny things, remains the stand-out). This whole exciting cauldron of story, character and SFX is never boring, swirling us into the bigger brew that's sure to follow. A ho hum twist at the end will excite some more than others but, between plotlines involving political skulduggery and a mysterious cult-leading sorcerer, moviegoers know Where to Find themselves when the sequel arrives. To Sum it Up: New Order of the Phoenix
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It's not without fun elements, but there's an almost total lack of compelling characters. Also, I don't know what Eddie Redmayne was doing performance wise but none of it works.
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Crude, Americanized (and I do not mean the NYC setting,) junk driven entirely by glutinous CGI effects and populated with paper-thin characters that are memorable only when they are unbearably annoying (Redmayne is insufferably affected, slipping through fish-lips.) Some dull nonsense about repressed magical children becoming smokenadoes of doom. No explanation of why Redmayne is wandering about with a safari park in a suitcase. Just a series of dreary mayhem sequences that recall Michael Bay's Transformers more than the rich, textured world of Harry Potter. Also vaguely sexist. Plus a last minute cameo for the increasingly unnecessary Johnny Depp.
Verified