Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them(2016)

Ratings

IMDb- 8/10

Rotten tomatoes- 90%

My Reviewal- 3.9/10

Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them is a 2016 British fantasy film directed by David Yates and distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures. A spin-off of the Harry Potter film series, the film was produced and written by J. K. Rowling (in her screenwriting debut), inspired by her book of the same name. The film stars Eddie Redmayne as Newt Scamander with Katherine Waterston, Dan Fogler, Alison Sudol, Ezra Miller, Samantha Morton, Jon Voight, Carmen Ejogo and Colin Farrell in supporting roles.

Principal photography began at Warner Bros. Studios, Leavesden on 17 August 2015. Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Thempremiered in New York City on 10 November 2016 and was released worldwide on 18 November 2016 in 3D, IMAX 4K Laser and other large format theatres. It received generally positive reviews from critics and has grossed $83 million.

Plot

In 1926, Newt Scamander arrives in New York by boat, carrying a mysterious suitcase that is home to dozens of magical creatures.

In the streets of New York, he comes across Mary Lou Barebone preaching about the existence of witches and other magical people. While Newt listens to Mary Lou, a Niffler, a small furry creature attracted to precious metals and gems, escapes from his suitcase and runs into a bank. Newt chases after it, causing mayhem everywhere and inadvertently dragging along a "No-Maj" named Jacob Kowalski, a World War I veteran and canning factory worker who is at the bank seeking a loan for a bakery. After retrieving the Niffler from the bank vault, Newt takes Jacob outside and prepares to obliviate him, but Jacob strikes him with the suitcase and escapes. Porpentina "Tina" Goldstein, a demoted auror, arrests Newt and takes him to Seraphina Picquery, the president of MACUSA (The Magical Congress of the United States of America), who dismisses them as unimportant.

Auror Percival Graves comes to Tina's office and demands to see what is in Newt's suitcase after Tina explains the situation to him. Upon opening it, Newt and Tina both are stunned to find pastries inside it, and Newt realizes he must have accidentally switched his suitcase with Jacob's. At his apartment, Jacob accidentally lets loose several of the magical creatures.

Meanwhile, Mary Lou is revealed to be running an orphanage of sorts, in which she indoctrinates the children with stories of evil witches and uses them to distribute anti-witch leaflets. Her youngest daughter, Modesty, proudly sings songs about dead witches, while her eldest son, Credence, is isolated and displays signs of discomfort with their professed ideology. Credence, unknown to Mary Lou, is approached several times by Graves, who has tasked him with finding a young child possessed by an Obscurus, whom Graves believes is connected to a number of unexplained, destructive magical incidents that have recently occurred in New York City. Graves has promised to rescue Credence from his troubled life and teach him magic if he succeeds.

Newt and Tina arrive at Jacob's place, where they find half his apartment blown up, and Jacob somewhat ill due to a bite from a Murtlap. Newt restores the apartment and Tina takes them to her home, where they meet Queenie, her younger sister who is skilled in Legilimency (mind-reading). Newt and Jacob are allowed to spend the night at their place, where Newt pulls Jacob into his suitcase, inside which Newt shows him his collection of magical beasts who are misunderstood by the world. While wandering through various environments within the suitcase, Jacob comes across a small dark entity, which Newt describes as an Obscurus, and urges Jacob not to touch it. Newt, after doing a count of missing beasts, leave the suitcase in order to find the first missing beast, an Erumpent, but Newt soon realizes his Niffler has once again escaped, and they recapture him at a jewelry store after a short struggle. They then come across several escaped ordinary animals including a lion and an ostrich, and they follow the trail back to the Central Park Zoo. Tina and Queenie soon realize that the two men are missing and Tina sets out to find them. She witnesses Newt and Jacob retrieving the Erumpent and heading back into Newt's suitcase. Determined to prove she's right to MACUSA, she locks the suitcase with Newt and Jacob inside and takes it with her back to MACUSA headquarters. Meanwhile, at MACUSA, many of the leaders have convened to address the dark force terrorizing New York City, which has resurfaced and killed a U.S. Senator. Tina shows President Picquery, Graves and a room full of important wizards what Newt has been up to. Picquery and Graves, however, arrest Newt, Tina and Jacob, and confiscate the suitcase.

Graves questions Newt about the presence of an Obscurus inside his suitcase. It is explained to be a dark force inadvertently created by young children who suppress their magic, out of fear of discovery or persecution by the non-magical community. A side effect of this magic is that the child hosts of Obscuruses, known as Obscurials, die before the age of 10. Newt had captured the Obscurus in his suitcase after it killed its Obscurial host, a young Sudanese girl. The child that Graves is seeking is in fact another unidentified Obscurial, who has continued wreaking havoc in the city and even killed United States Senator Henry Shaw, Jr. at a banquet. Graves sentences Newt and Tina to death, which is overheard by Queenie while reading Tina's mind. Newt uses one of his recently captured beasts, a Swooping Evil, to escape the Aurors, and together with Queenie, they retrieve Jacob and sneak out of MACUSA headquarters.

Meanwhile, Credence is shown to be growing more unstable due to his abusive home, and when he finds a wand underneath Modesty's bed, Mary Lou assumes that it is his and prepares to whip him with his belt, as she frequently does whenever he misbehaves. Modesty then confesses that the wand is hers, and when Mary Lou turns on her to whip her, the Obscurus appears, destroys the entire house, and seemingly kills everyone except for Credence and Modesty. Graves finds Credence later, and urges him to help him find Modesty, whom he believes to be the child from the prophecy. Newt, Tina, Jacob and Queenie visit a magical speakeasy to ask its goblin owner, Gnarlack, for information about the final missing beast, Dougal, a Demiguise who has the unfortunate power of being invisible. After Newt pretends to trade his Bowtruckle for information, Graves and his Aurors arrive at the nightclub, having been informed by Gnarlack about the foursome's presence there. Newt and his friends escape, and manage to track down Dougal, who is revealed to be caring for an escaped Occamy, a magical creature which can expand or shrink itself to fit any available space. Now having taken residence in the roof of Macy's, the Occamy has expanded itself to the size of a dragon. Newt, Tina and Jacob trick the Occamy into shrinking until it fits into a teapot and, relieved, Newt puts it back in his suitcase, now having retrieved all of the escaped magical beasts.

Graves and Credence track Modesty down to her old home where she used to live with her biological family. After cruelly rejecting Credence as a Squib and telling him that he was never going to help him escape his abusive life, Graves prepares himself to capture a terrified Modesty. However, Credence then reveals that he was the child possessed by the Obscurus all along. Fueled by his rage for Graves, Credence unleashes the full power of the Obscurus. Now incorporeal, Credence ravages the streets of New York, leaving chaos and destruction in his path. Newt, realizing that the lack of information Aurors have on Obscurials will lead them to kill Credence, sets out to find him. He tracks him down to an underground subway station, where he soothes Credence back into corporeal form. The arrivals of Graves and Tina cause Credence to shift back and forth between corporeal and non-corporeal state. When President Picquery and rest of the Aurors arrive, Picquery orders Credence's death in the interest of protecting magical secrecy. Despite protests from Newt, Tina and Graves, the Aurors kill Credence. Graves berates MACUSA for their actions and their obsessive need to preserve the thin veil of secrecy between the magical and non-magical world, which he claims has created situations like these and favors the interests of the non-magical community above the needs of wizards. Picquery orders Graves to hand over his wand and surrender himself. Graves battles the Aurors and seems to gain the upper hand until Newt overpowers and binds him using one of his creatures. Using the Revelio Charm, Graves is revealed to be Gellert Grindelwald, the most notorious Dark Wizard in the world. He is arrested and taken back to MACUSA. Newt, meanwhile, uses his Thunderbird to spread an amnesiac potion using the rain, wiping the memories of all No-majs who witnessed the magical havoc. Picquery orders them to wipe Jacob's memory as well, reminding them there are no exceptions, although she allows them to say goodbye. Queenie, who has grown fond of Jacob, kisses him before they leave.

A little while later, Newt changes Jacob's suitcase with a suitcase filled with silver Occamy eggshells to use as collateral for a bank loan for his bakery. Tina gets her old job as an Auror back, and she and Newt say their goodbyes at the harbor. Newt promises he will return once he has finished his book. Queenie visits Jacob's bakery, which is running extremely successfully especially due to the delicacies he makes inspired by the beasts he met but doesn't remember. The scene ends with Jacob appearing to faintly recognize her.