Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (2016) (SPOILERS) It can definitely be a positive to approach a picture with lowered expectations. I could quite easily have skipped JK Rowling’s self-penned Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them on the big screen, as I did the latter five Harry Potter s. While I’ve never been a devotee of the series, I’ve never had much against either, and a few of them ( The Prisoner of Azkaban , The Half-Blood Prince ) I was even rather impressed by. But there was a nagging feeling that, whenever I caught up with the latest instalment, they were foremost intended for devotees of the books, dutifully faithful and lacking the necessary flair and individuality to become truly cinematic affairs in their own right. At this point, the Fantastic Beasts franchise has no such encumbrances (even if it looks to be weighed down with Potter lore subsequently, much as Lucas’ prequel trilogy was), and it benefits enormously. It also benefits from an array of