Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them - 2 smiles

You don't have to be a fan of the Harry Potter series to enjoy "Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them." But Harry Potter fans will be reassured to see that we're still in the same universe although the continent and era have changed. We are now in the mid-1920s New York City. British wizard Newt Scamander (Eddie Redmayne), disembarks at Ellis Island. He carries with him a battered brown briefcase that's more than a simple suitcase. Instead, it's a portal into another dimension where his collection of 'fantastic beasts' resides. When several of his creatures escape as a result of an accident, he co-opts the help of a 'No-Mag' (aka Muggle) named Jacob Kowalski (a delightful Dan Fogler), who owns a briefcase almost identical to Newt's. Tina Goldstein (Katherine Waterston), an agent for the Magical Congress of the United States of America watches Newt's activities and decides to bring him in for unlawful importation of magical creatures. Percival Graves (Colin Ferrel), the Director of Magical Security, takes an interest in Newt's case because his arrival occurs just as the carefully concealed existence of wizardry is threatened with exposure.

The scenes inside Newt's magical suitcase are among the film's most engaging. The magical menagerie includes a platypus-like animal with an appetite for sparkly things (my favorite), a winged snake that 'expands to fill all the space,' an invisible entity and a giant creature in heat looking for a mate. The biggest weakness seems to be director David Yate's inability to balance the scenes of whimsy with the animals with the struggle between the forces of good, led by Newt, and the forces of evil, led by the Dark Wizard Gellert Grindelwald (wait for it .... Johnny Depp). (At this reveal, the audience laughed!!) There are other plot strands that involve a dangerous wizard who doesn't realize he's a wizard, a rogue wizard who wants magic in America out in the open and a sadistic woman who runs an orphanage and wants all magic wielders destroyed. As an origin movie, "Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them" has too many plot strands and not enough character development. We have to hope that the next one will be a little more focused. And I certainly hope Dan Fogler's Jacob Kowalski will take his place beside Newt Scamander.