Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them

I shall call him Groot

Grade: B

Director: David Yates

Starring: Eddie Redmayne, Katherine Waterston, Dan Fogler, Alison Sudol, Colin Farrell, Samantha Morton, Ezra Miller and Jon Voight

MPAA Rating: PG-13

Running Time: 2 hr. 13 min.

Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them isn’t a great film. It largely shows the distended strain of a 120-page book bloated into a 133-minute movie. But this adaptation and amplification of author J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter supplement might also be one of the year’s most timely and subversive films.

Rowling’s original source book, published in 2001, is fashioned as Harry Potter's copy of the textbook of the same name mentioned in Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. Its menagerie of magical creatures carries over to the film’s screenplay, also and more recently penned by Rowling, which fleshes out a new storyline revolving around Newt Scamander (Eddie Redmayne) and his 1926 trip from England to New York City.

Scamander is a former Hogwarts prodigy turned mysterious castout who carries around a leather suitcase that’s acts as a portal into a alt-dimension housing exotic beasts collected from around the world. The bewildered Scamander quickly misplaces his travel case into the unwitting hands of Jacob Kowalski (Dan Fogler), a portly, aspiring baker and No-Maj (the American version of a Muggle).

Audiences spend the film’s first half trying to understand Redmayne as he method acts his way through a Gen Y trifle. Indeed, Scamander and Kowalski spend the film’s first half tracking and recapturing Scamander’s critters as they escape and run rampant around Manhattan. A Niffler is a long-snouted marsupial with a penchant for anything shiny; the Demiguise is blessed with invisibility and limited clairvoyance; an Occamy is a blue bird that enlarges or shrinks to fit any available space; the expansive Thunderbird is native to the arid Arizona climate; and an Erumpent is a huge rhino replicant that happens to be in heat. The film gets bogged down in Scamander and Kowalski’s hijinks, including their goofy interplay with Tina Goldstein (Katherine Waterston), a demoted bureaucratic witch, and her randy sister Queenie (Alison Sudol).

But Fantastic Beasts eventually, and thankfully, finds footing in its social and religious allegory. The film begins as an immigrant’s story, with Scamander entering the U.S. via Ellis Island in the shadow of the Statue of Liberty. He finds a divided America, with one extreme being a radical group of No-Majs calling themselves The Second Salemers, dedicated to exposing and killing witches and wizards. Meanwhile, sorcerers have been forced underground, where they operate a shadow government that includes their own congress, president (Carmen Ejogo) and security force headed by Percival Graves (Colin Farrell).

The dark heart of colonial-era Salem’s war on witchcraft was actually religious oppression and persecution. The unease between No-Majs and wizards mirrors our real-life unrest between Westerners and the historic “Others,” most recently Muslims in both America and Rowling’s native England. The most hard-edged analog comes with the appearance of Obscurials, a dark, uncontrollable force created by children and young adults out of a need to suppress their magic, for fear that a No-Maj may discover them. Once released, Obscurials wreak havoc, demolish buildings and even kill perceived enemies—in one instance a prominent politician, the sire of newspaper magnate Jon Voight. Many, including other wizards, believe the terrorists, er, Obsurdials must be wiped out before they irrevocably turn No-Majs against the wizard community. Others, like Scamander, preaches efforts to understand and alleviate the underlying shame and repression giving rise to the danger.

It’s a provocative take on terrorism and its root causes that’s liable to breeze through all the whimsy. In both fact and fiction, there’s a tension between those preaching tolerance and those espousing protectionism and security. Director David Yates’ rich, baroque setting provides a worthy springboard for Rowling’s Harry Potter spin-off. The course of its future narratives, however, is up to us.

Woman in Black

Wow, Hogwarts has gone downhill fast

Grade: C +
Director: James Watkins
Starring: Daniel Radcliffe, Ciarán Hinds, Janet McTeer, David Burke, and Shaun Dooley
MPAA Rating: PG-13
Running Time: 1 hr. 34 min.

The epochs of classic creature features and splatter fests have gradually given way to a contemporary horror film genre shaped by Asian influences and, more notably, the trappings of today’s technology. Starting with Hideo Nakata’s Ringu—a convenient, affecting marriage of these two influences—popular modern scare fare is the stuff of The Blair Witch Project and such progeny as Paranormal Activity. They’re the same chills and thrills, just filtered through the grainy prism of camcorder and surveillance monitors.

From this standpoint, The Woman in Black feels more like a musty curio than a standalone frightener. This adaptation of Susan Hill’s 1983 novel—already the basis for a West End theatre production now approaching a run of 23 years—pays homage to the Gothic Hammer Horror films, not coincidental as it is the first feature shot in England under the until-recently dormant production banner in over thirty years.

Director James Watkins imbues every scene with the typical tropes: creepy kids, evil apparitions, a vine-covered manse, overgrown cemeteries and an array of spooky toys and music boxes. Shadows flutter about and objects jump out of nowhere, usually accompanied by a musical flourish. It’s all a handsome showcase that taps your sense of nostalgia more intensely than your adrenal gland.

Set in Victorian England, Arthur Kipps (Daniel Radcliffe) is a widower whose wife died four years ago while giving birth to their son (Misha Handley). Now a struggling solicitor and single dad, Kipps is dispatched to the town of Crythin Gifford along England’s east coast to attend to the affairs of Mrs. Alice Drablow, a recently deceased recluse. There, Kipps finds a village of the damned as townsfolk grapple with an inexplicable epidemic of their children doing fatal harm to themselves.

Ignoring the warning of locals (natch), Kipps snakes his way down a meandering causeway to Drablow’s decrepit estate, an archetypal haunted house cut off from the mainland by the nocturnal high tide. Filmed on the 380-acre Osea Island in Essex, the evocative locale is, unfortunately, far more dynamic than its on-screen inhabitants.

After arriving, Kipps’ professional duties quickly take a backseat to wading into the mysterious death of a young boy years earlier. “Don’t go chasing shadows, Arthur,” warns Sam Dailey (Ciarán Hinds), a cynical local landowner. Of course, movies of this sort subsist off such folly, so Kipps not only chooses to stay overnight at the haunted mansion (cueing audience groans and guffaws), but he follows every sounds and opens every locked door, most notably the ghostly presence of the titular femme. There’s surprisingly little blood; the lone sight of crimson, gushing from the mouth of a doomed girl, stands out against a palette that’s as hoary as the horror precepts at play.

Radcliffe does well playing Scary Potter but is given little else to do—fans will have to make do seeing him again do battle with a pale-faced villain, visiting an ethereal rail station in the process. Hinds headlines a game supporting cast that includes Janet McTeer (Oscar-nominated for Albert Nobbs and Tumbleweeds) as Dailey’s grief-crazed wife. Their presence marks the only instances the film achieves anything approaching character complexity.

That said, Watkins crafts some striking visuals, and audiences pining for the visceral stimuli of an old-fashioned ghost story will occasionally jump out of their seats, at least until fifth or sixth time an empty rocking chair totters on its own or the WIB’s ashen visage appears in a window pane or down a long corridor. Capped by a cloying climax, The Woman in Black quickly runs out of frights…and clichés.

Neil Morris

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2

Let's make a deal - the Elder Wand for your nose

Grade: B +

Director: David Yates

Starring: Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint, Emma Watson, Ralph Fiennes, Alan Rickman, Michael Gambon, and Helena Bonham Carter

MPAA Rating: PG-13

Running Time: 2 hr. 10 min.

As the action-filled climax to the acclaimed fantasy series, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 dispenses with much additional character development or insight, save for Harry’s revelatory gaze through a prism formed from the tears of Severus Snape (Alan Rickman). Instead, the film draws upon a decade of Potter iconography to fashion a nostalgic quietus – with familiar creatures and supporting characters, both living and dead, given one last turn in the spotlight – en route to the fated Ragnarok between Harry (Daniel Radcliffe) and Lord Voldemort (Ralph Fiennes).

It is a wistfulness bound to be shared by the British film industry, which the “Harry Potter” franchise has almost singlehandedly buttressed since 2001. Indeed, the entire “Potter” saga has always been best interpreted from a British standpoint. “Deathly Hallows: Part 2” is no exception, with the assault on Hogwarts by Voldemort and his dark army especially evocative for a country that over the last 70 years has suffered The Blitz, decades of IRA terrorism and the 7/7 London Underground bombings. An image of students and faulty tending to the dead and injured amidst the rubble of Hogwarts is eerily, perhaps purposefully reminiscent of the aftermath of Luftwaffe air raids during World War II.

Formerly a savior in waiting, Harry Potter is in full Messianic bloom. Instead of a conquering king, however, Harry discovers that his true destiny is to die so that the world might live. He’s even given his own Garden of Gethsemane moment, during which he communes with the heavenly apparition of his father, mother and others.

As BFFs Ron (Rupert Grint) and Hermione (Emma Watson) again help Harry try to vanquish Voldemort, Deathly Hallows: Part 2 carries an enjoyable but inevitable air. Director David Yates, whose four Potter films saved the series from a critical standpoint, dutifully fills in the narrative blanks amid what amounts to a special effects extravaganza.

The singular saving grace comes late in the film at the end of a chat between Harry and Albus Dumbledore (Michael Gambon) inside an ethereal incarnation of King’s Cross railway station. “Is this real, or has this been happening inside my head?,” asks Harry. “Of course it’s happening inside your head, Harry,” answers the undead headmaster. “But, that doesn’t mean it’s not real.”

The exchange – slightly reworded from J.K. Rowling’s prose – lands like a load of bricks. Even the cursory suggestion that events occurring beyond – and perhaps even before – this scene might be figments of Harry’s imagination is itself a ruse.

In truth, Dumbledore’s response is directed at the viewer, underscoring the porous line between fiction and individualized reality as insightfully as François Ozon’s Swimming Pool or anything written by Charlie Kaufman. Moreover, it is an instance of utter symbiosis between art and audience, both an acknowledgement and validation of the Potter faithful that have queued up to buy the books and donned capes and makeshift wands to watch the movies.

Capped by a sunbathed, symbolic coda, the enduring moral of the Harry Potter series is the timeliness of art. Nineteen years hence, Harry, Ron and Hermione won’t be the ones introducing their grade school children to the magical wonders of Hogwarts; it’ll be the now-teenage fans who grew up with them.

Neil Morris

Originally published at www.indyweek.com: http://goo.gl/XCDxV

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1

Harry's not feeling quite himself today

Grade: B +

Director: David Yates

Starring: Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson, Rupert Grint, Ralph Fiennes, Helena Bonham Carter, Alan Rickman, Bill Nighy, Brendan Gleeson, and Imelda Staunton

MPAA Rating: PG-13

Running Time: 2 hours, 26 minutes

In a film rife with depictions of torture and genocide, the most haunting scene in the decidedly dark but tremendous Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1 (hereinafter HPDH1) is a wordless, isolated moment during its opening sequence. Forced like her Hogwarts schoolmates to flee home in order to escape the encroaching forces of Lord Voldemort (Ralph Fiennes), Hermione Granger (Emma Watson) casts a spell on her unsuspecting parents that erases any memory of her, a process that also literally removes her image from the family portraits lining their mantelpiece.

This isn’t your grade schooler’s Harry Potter – no quidditch matches, classroom hijinks, or school dances. Indeed, Hogwarts is never seen at all. Instead, the still-suffocating Potter vernacular is mercifully co-opted by a story steeped in genuine human emotions: love, friendship, racism, loyalty, betrayal, etc. As Harry, Hermoine, and Ron (Daniel Radcliffe, Watson, and Rupert Grint, respectively) have aged before our eyes, so too have the challenges facing them grown more treacherous.

With Harry’s friends shielding the Chosen One from Voldemort’s omnipotent pall, the dark lord’s minions capture control over the Ministry of Magic and initiate their “Final Solution” to exterminate Muggles and any other non-pure-bloods. Wizards-in-waiting are now indoctrinated with such propaganda as “Mudbloods and The Dangers They Pose” and “When Muggles Attack,” written and illustrated to resemble Julius Streicher’s anti-Semitic Nazi invectives.

With the death of Harry’s father-figure Dumbledore and minimal assistance from their dwindling adult mentors, it now falls to Harry and Co. to defeat Voldemort by gathering and destroying Horcruxes that sustain the villain’s immortality…or something like that. Also figuring into the equation are the so-called deathly hallows, which we learn about via an ancient fable director David Yates tells using a clever animation sequence.

In HPDH1, Harry, Hermoine, and Ron’s task assumes an epic grandeur, more atmospheric, meditative, and slower than previous installments. Accompanied by the plaintive refrains of composer Alexandre Desplat, they hopscotch from dungeons to Piccadilly Circus to endless sweeping vistas, battling not only Death Eaters but also their own hormonal angst. In particular, Yates brings to the surface Ron’s festering resentment towards the more popular Harry as well as his insecurity over their respective relationships with Hermoine.

The evening after Ron storms out on his friends, Harry and Hermoine console each other with an impromptu slow dance set to “O Children” by Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds – “Forgive us now for what we’ve done/It started out as fun/Here, take these before we run away/The keys to the gulag.” It’s an affecting scene redolent of an art-house coming of age picture, much less a multi-million dollar film sequel.

The darker, worldly themes in the last three Harry Potter films – the best of the bunch, and all directed Yates, not coincidentally – are unsurprising once you realize they are adapted from the only books J.K. Rowling wrote post-9/11. Moreover, the first hour of HPDH1 is the most provocative in the entire film series, although that does amplify the monotony that takes root during the film’s second half as Yates applies the narrative brakes in preparation for Part 2’s finale next July.

Still, even if the battles for Hogwarts and Harry’s soul have yet to be fought, the merit of the once vapid Harry Potter films has finally been established. Luckily, they saved the best for last.

Neil Morris

*Originally published at http://www.indyweek.com/indyweek/harry-potter-and-the-deathly-hallows-part-1-is-decidedly-dark-and-tremendous/Content?oid=1808900

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

Next up on QVC: selections from the Hogwarts Collection

Grade: B +

Director: David Yates

Starring: Daniel Radcliffe, Michael Gambon, Jim Broadbent, Emma Watson, Rupert Grint, Alan Rickman, Maggie Smith, Tom Felton, Robbie Coltrane, Helena Bonham Carter, and Bonnie Wright

MPAA Rating: PG

Running Time: 2 hours, 33 minutes

During the heyday of James Bond films, it seemed every successive 007 movie was tagged as “The biggest Bond of all.” Similarly, the principal critique of each new entry in the Harry Potter saga is whether it is the “most mature” or “darkest” Potter film yet.

While devotees may prefer the childlike charm of the two Chris Columbus offerings, the visual skillfulness in Alfonso Cuarón’s Prisoner of Azkaban, or the post-9/11 zeitgeist of Order of the Phoenix, the truth is that differentiating between any two Harry Potter films is rather like choosing between Wonder Bread or Sunbeam: Each are satisfying, but at the end of the day, they’re both just white bread.

Until now. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince not only dramatically distinguishes itself from its forerunners, but also validates the series as a whole. In the able hands of returning director David Yates, this is the funniest, most visually sublime, and, yes, darkest addition to the Potter canon. You are taken in from the opening dissolve, in which Harry (Daniel Radcliffe), now trumpeted as the Chosen One, is caught in the crosshairs of Paparazzi flashbulbs, just starting to bear the weight of expectation and shielded only under the protective wing of his mentor/surrogate father-figure, Dumbledore (Michael Gambon).

Lord Voldemont and his Death Eaters continue to tighten their grip on both the magical and outside Muggle worlds. Although we never glimpse Ralph Fiennes, the film wisely spends time informing us about Voldemont’s dark past when he was a student at Hogwarts named Tom Riddle. Along the way, Harry also uncovers an old textbook full of secrets scribbled by its former owner, the mysterious “Half-Blood Prince.”

More than any other, this Potter film grasps the fact that the series’ true magic rests not in passageways, potions, and periphrastic spells, but in the relationships between the characters. Of course, there is the seminal trio of Harry, Ron Weasley (Rupert Grint), and Hermione Granger (Emma Watson), now steeping squarely in the hormonal whims of adolescence angst. At various points during the Quidditch matches, the flying broomsticks straddled by competitors vying for the affections of female onlookers conspicuously assume a phallic form.

But, the story’s principal couple has always been Harry and Dumbledore, and their bond has never been more personal than here, taking on a heightened father-son air, even including Dumbledore making repeated causal inquires about Harry’s love life.

Virtually the entire film is pitch-perfect, from the pacing to the visual effects to the best ensemble acting thus far in the series. In roles they have played since their preteens, Radcliffe, Watson, and Grint have matured as actors along with their characters, although still overmatched against their Royal Shakespearean Co. costars. Indeed, Gambon has made us forget Richard Harris, while Jim Broadbent steals the movie as the dotty, yet haunted Professor Slughorn.

The real star of Half-Blood Prince, however, is Yates, an experienced television director who is already tabbed to adapt J.K. Rowling’s final installment, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Yates has taken hold of the franchise reigns so firmly that he is comfortable imprinting it with his own filmmaking style while also being given license to depart occasionally from Rowling’s literary blueprint. The happy result is a Harry Potter film that not only stands apart, but one you’d want to see again. That might be the most amazing magic trick of all.

Neil Morris