When the Harry Potter saga reached the end of its eight-movie run in 2011, only a Muggle would have predicted that we'd heard the last from J.K. Rowling's world of wizardry. Never mind the obsessive fandom that the novels and films inspired, they were also seriously big business. As cinematic franchises go, only the Marvel movies have raked in more money.
So here we are, five years later, with "Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them." Given the nominal source material — an imaginary textbook Rowling published in 2001 to complement the "Harry Potter" novels — it would be easy to dismiss the film as a product of financial rather than creative necessity. But with the author herself penning the screenplay and "Harry Potter" series veteran David Yates back in the director's chair, the movie already has more integrity than any of this year's other franchise flicks.
It's tremendous fun, too. Rather than opting for a conventional prequel, sequel or (shudder) reboot, "Fantastic Beasts" delves back in time and shifts the action to the other side of the Atlantic. Rowling has a luxury that Steve Kloves, who scripted all but one of the "Harry Potter" movies, was never granted: She gets a well-established universe to play in, without the responsibility of condensing a 600-page novel's worth of narrative.