Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (2016) Movie Review

Eddie Redmayne stars as klutzy magizoologist Newt Scamander, the author of the future guide of magical creatures that exist in this world and, of course, where they may be found. Set mostly in New York City in 1926, we find those who can work magic living in a world where the No-Majs, aka, those who have no powers to speak of, are kept in the dark to all of the fantastic things going on around them due to spells of ‘obliviation’, which erases their memories of them.

Scamander arrives in New York with a magical suitcase chock full of his magical creatures, highly illegal to possess in these parts, with the intention of releasing one of the most magnificent among them, a Thunderbird, in the wilds of Arizona. However, in a mishap, that suitcase is swapped with one belonging to a struggling No-Maj factory worker and baker named Jacob Kowalski, who ignorantly ends up releasing a bunch of the forbidden creatures out into the public. In this environment, the wizards have their own factions and the No-Majs have an upstart group known of more zealous elements bent on weeding them out, though there is a struggle for power even within those ranks with people forging forward with their own agendas for wanting to expose the secret society of magic existing within the city.