The result mostly works and works exceedingly well.
Considering that the guidebook began life as a prop in a single scene from 2001's Harry Potter and The Sorcerer's Stone (she turned the prop book into an actual book while the film was in post-production), however, a feature film as the next logical step actually starts to make sense. Thin on dramatic material but rich in the kind of detailed minutia that often supplemented Tolkien's epic works, Rowling's guidebook certainly doesn't seem like an obvious jumping off point. So far as adapting a 90-page encyclopedic primer into a 2 and 1/4 hour fantasy full of engaging characters and dazzling spectacle, Fantastic Beasts definitely deserves high marks. In this PG-13-rated fantasy adventure, writer Newt Scamander (Eddie Redmayne) finds a treasure trove of briefcase-dwelling beasties unleashed in 1930s New York City. Rowling's wizarding world with a spun-off tale that's at times, well, fantastical. Though slightly less magical than the best of the Harry Potter film series, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them nonetheless re-establishes audiences in J.K.
