‘Fantastic’ not yet Potter-magical – ‘Beauty & the Beast’ live-action film with surprises

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This image released by Warner Bros Entertainment shows Eddie Redmayne (left), and Katherine Waterston in a scene from, ‘Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them’. (AP)
This image released by Warner Bros Entertainment shows Eddie Redmayne (left), and Katherine Waterston in a scene from, ‘Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them’. (AP)
Xenophobia. Prejudice. Oppression.

Who’s up for a little escapism at the multiplex?

J.K. Rowling, embarking on her new, post-Potter blockbuster franchise with “Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them,” has said herself that her screenplay, which she began several years ago, was informed by world events — particularly, she noted, a rise in populism around the globe.

And so there’s definitely some darkness in “Fantastic Beasts,” despite its being a family film, complete with the sweetest little beasts (and bigger ones) imaginable — expect to see your kid melt forthwith over the lovable jewelry-imbibing Niffler (It’s stunning how many carats he can consume without gaining weight.)

But there’s also a refreshingly light tone competing with the sinister themes, thanks especially to two exceedingly appealing supporting characters headed for a sweet confection of a romance.

But first, the title: Harry Potter fans will know that “Fantastic Beasts” was a required text for Harry and his Hogwarts mates. That little book has now become the seed of a franchise — there are FOUR films to come — based on its author, Newt Scamander (Eddie Redmayne), a wizard Magizoologist with a mop haircut, a bashful grin, and one fabulous briefcase.

Creations

Why is this briefcase so great? Well, it’s magic, like Mary Poppins’ carpet bag. But while Mary basically pulled out room furnishings, Scamander has not only a menagerie of fantastical creatures, but seemingly a whole mini-planet in there to house them.

We start with Scamander just off the boat in 1926 New York, a few years before the Great Depression. Director David Yates, of the last four Potter films, has clearly spared no expense in creating this Jazz Age Big Apple, from the grand skyscrapers and period automobiles to Colleen Atwood’s delicious costumes, to of course the endlessly inventive CGI beasts.

It’s not the best time for a young wizard and his pets to be arriving. Magical folk have gone undercover. Among the No-Majs (that’s American for Muggles, or humans), zealots from the Second Salemers (as in Salem Witch Trials) are looking to destroy wizards and witches.

So the wizards’ governing body, MACUSA, is suppressing all magical beasts, lest they expose the wizards. It’s particularly inconvenient when Newt’s creatures are accidentally set loose across the city.

It becomes a race against time for Newt and three companions to rescue them and save the city from an undefined, sinister force. These companions are Tina (Katherine Waterston), an ambitious but well-meaning MACUSA investigator; Jacob (Dan Fogler), an amiable, portly No-Maj baker who gets caught up in it all; and Queenie, Tina’s mind-reading, sweetly sensitive sister (Alison Sudol).

Also in the mix: Percival Graves (Colin Farrell, in an undefined role), the mysterious director of MACUSA, and zealot Mary Lou Barebone (Samantha Morton). And there’s one more big star — bigger than all — who makes a late appearance. (We won’t spoil it here — feel free to Google.)

It’s all entertaining, lovely, expertly done. Why then does it feel as if something’s missing? Perhaps it’s our inescapable urge to compare it to the Potter phenomenon.

Or perhaps it’s that Harry was, well, a kid, who we watched grow up. “Fantastic Beasts” is obviously more of an adult story. Redmayne is charming, though less commanding than in some other roles. He has nice charisma with the winsomely earnest Waterston. But the real chemistry is between Fogler and Sudol, an unlikely couple eyeing each other coyly across the Wizard/No-Maj chasm.

Then there are the beasts — not just Niffler, but Bowtruckle, Erumpent, Murtlaf and Mooncalf, to name a few. Here, Rowling delivers as only she can. “I don’t think I’m dreaming,” Jacob says. “I ain’t got the brains to make this up.”

Other than Rowling, who really does?

“Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them,” a Warner Bros. release, is rated PG-13 by the Motion Picture Association of America for “some fantasy action violence.” Running time: 133 minutes. Three stars out of four.

Director Bill Condon was only interested in turning Disney’s animated classic “Beauty and the Beast” into a live-action film if he could use Alan Menken’s Oscar-winning score. He remembers fondly when it came out in 1991 and how it not only solidified Disney’s animation renaissance after “The Little Mermaid,” but also helped revitalize the movie musical at a time when the genre was basically dead.

The New York Times theater critic Frank Rich even called it, somewhat controversially, “the best Broadway musical score of 1991.”

It’s fitting, then, that the twinkling instrumentals of Menken’s prologue are the first thing you hear in the new trailer for the film, released Monday by Disney.

Set for a March 1, 2017, release, the film stars Emma Watson as Belle, Dan Stevens as the Beast and a robust supporting cast including the likes of Luke Evans, Ewan McGregor, Stanley Tucci, Emma Thompson and Gugu Mbatha-Raw. The film will feature re-recordings of Menken and Howard Ashman’s songs, as well as a few new ones.

“We talk about how technology is a reason for doing it 25 years later, but the fact is, too, that the genre itself has revived and people are more accepting. There’s a wider audience for just the joy of breaking out into song,” said Condon, who also wrote and directed “Dreamgirls.” “It feels like the audience has caught up again.”

High

Indeed, interest in the project is extraordinarily high. In its first 24 hours online, the trailer garnered 127.6 million views — besting the first day trailer stats for both “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” and “Fifty Shades Darker” by over 13 million views.

Anyone who has seen the animated film is sure to be struck by some familiar imagery in the trailer, recreated and made real in magnificent detail — like the grand ballroom and Belle’s yellow gown. But Condon was not restricted solely to drawing from the animated film.

The new movie also contains nods to Jean Cocteau’s ornate black and white version from 1946, Condon said, as well as his own unique vision.

“We went in with the idea that we were going to set it in a very specific time — the early 18th century in the French countryside,” Condon said. They took pains to make sure the household staff resembled items — clocks, teapots, candelabras — from that time and place.

Unsurprisingly, the big, splashy technical set-piece is “Be Our Guest,” in which the anthropomorphized household items stage their own Busby Berkeley-inspired number to serve Belle a meal. It wasn’t easy.

“For us it was taking something that animation does easily — imagining dancing candlesticks — and making it real,” he said.

The film is not just a remembrance of “Beauty and the Beasts” past, however. They’ve made Belle even more modern than she was in 1991, when it was somewhat extraordinary to have the center of a Disney film be more interested in books than boys. In this version, she’s an inventor too, and being portrayed by an actress who is a humanitarian and a UN women’s ambassador. (AP)

“Having somebody who is devoting her life to those causes was invaluable as we started to reinvent this feminist character,” he said.

Also, Condon, whose films frequently deal with subjects pertaining to gay identity, is embracing that context here, too. He said the late lyricist Howard Ashman, who had AIDS at the time, closely identified with the Beast’s story as “somebody who is cursed and whose curse is breaking the hearts of those who love him and the fantasy that this curse could be lifted.”

Ashman died of AIDS related complications months before the animated film even hit theaters in 1991.

“Right from the start it, in a very personal way, grew out of that tragic gay moment and then beyond that it’s a musical,” Condon said. “I don’t want to give too much away, but I think there are actually a few more explicit moments that might surprise you.”(AP)

By Jocelyn Noveck

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