Wednesday, April 19, 2017

"FANTASTIC BEASTS AND WHERE TO FIND THEM" (2016) Review

"FANTASTIC BEASTS AND WHERE TO FIND THEM" (2016) Review

After the 2011 movie "HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HALLOWS, PART II" hit the movie theaters, I had assumed that would be the last film set in J.K. Rowling's "wizarding world of Harry Potter". Her 2007 novel, "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows" was her last one in a series of seven books. But . . . lo and behold, Warner Brothers Studios, who had released the films based upon her novel, found a way to continue the series. The end result was the release of the recent film, "FANTASTIC BEASTS AND WHERE TO FIND THEM".

"FANTASTIC BEASTS AND WHERE TO FIND THEM" is based upon a 2001 book writtenby Rowling. Somewhat. First of all, the book is not a novel, but a "scholarly" book about the magical creatures found in the Harry Potter universe. Second of all, the book was published under the fictional pen name of one Newt Scamander. What Rowlings, who served as the film's screenwriter, did was used the Newt Scamander pen name and transformed him into the movie's main character. In the film, British wizard and "magizoologist" Newt Scamander arrives by boat to New York City in the fall of 1926. Newt has arrived in the United States to release a magical creature called the Thunderbird in the Arizona desert. While listening to a sidewalk speech given by a non-magical (No-Maj) fanatic named Mary Lou Barebone, one of his charges - a