Fantastic Beasts - enjoyable enough without reaching the Potter Peaks

You probably oughtn’t to call a film about witchcraft and wizardry the perfect treat for the Easter holidays.

But it’s certainly going to fill time very enjoyably for hundreds of thousands of fans young and old over the next few weeks – even if it’s a film which never remotely scales the heights of the Harry Potter series it has spun off from. Memories of the first two films in the Fantastic Beasts franchise certainly dampen expectations of this, the third, but in fact, this mid-point in the supposed series of five is comfortably the best so far.

In its opening moments each successive Harry Potter film tingled the spine – a trusty promise of cinematic magic. Fantastic Beasts never quite manages it.

And nor do the Fantastic Beasts films ever do that thing that the Potters did so brilliantly, persuading us that they are all heading somewhere epic, each one growing in momentum and tension.

The other big difference is that the Fantastic Beasts still haven’t quite created a set of characters that we can truly invest in, that we can’t wait to see again. Suggesting a gay backstory for Jude Law’s young Albus Dumbledore doesn’t necessarily make him any more interesting: and Eddie Redmayne as our anti-hero Newt is pretty irritating with his mannerisms and twitches. But there’s definitely a feeling that this chapter in the saga at least comes together very pleasingly.

The gist is that dark wizard Gellert Grindelwald (Mads Mikkelsen) is on the rise. He is determined that his voice will be heard and he is determined that it is going to be deafening. And given that we are in pre-war Berlin, that he is seeking election and that he has hordes of chanting, fist-pumping acolytes, it’s rather obvious who he is intended to invoke – something which certainly doesn’t sit easily as you watch. Fantasy entertainment really oughtn’t to trivialise history as a by-product; yet it is Mikkelsen who finally breathes life into the franchise, an excellent side-stepping substitute for the disgraced Johnny Depp.

To start with, it’s all so murky (literally – endless dark interiors) that it’s hard to fathom quite what is happening, but the 1920s world is effectively conjured; and after half an hour or so, one of the characters drops a clunky but useful “just how did we get here” resume.

After that, it all pulls together and while it’s probably at least a quarter of an hour too long, the finale – and then the coda – are impressive and then satisfying without ever having the urgency or the panache of Potter.

If Voldemort was the greatest threat to mankind, then what on earth are we supposed to make of Grindelwald? Clearly he’s not going to succeed. Otherwise we wouldn’t ever have had a Potter. Which then makes you start to think about the ages. We have tantalising glimpses of a handful of Hogwarts types and we even visit Hogwarts. But aren’t the ages all wrong if they are this age in the 1920s 80 years before we first met them 20 years ago. Maybe best not to think about it…

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