Fantastic Beasts And Where To Find Them: 4K Ultra HD / Blu-ray 3D Review
The Movie:
There are growing dangers in the wizarding world of 1926 New York. Something mysterious is leaving a path of destruction in the streets, threatening to expose the wizarding community to the No-Majs (American for Muggles), including the Second Salemers, a fanatical faction bent on eradicating them. And the powerful, dark wizard Gellert Grindelwald, after wreaking havoc in Europe, has slipped away…and is now nowhere to be found.
I enjoy some good mystical type films every now and then but I did go into this film with a level of concern. Mainly because I’m not the hugest Potter fan and that since this was a prequel I wasn’t sure I would get all the references made. Surprisingly enough it was very easy to follow and I actually got many of the references regarding what would be of the future Harry Potter films. The thing that I loved the most about the movie was the fact that you could tell that many elements of the story were put in place as a set up for future films in the Fantastic Beasts franchise and that was really cool. All those elements didn’t bog the movie down either, in fact it was very well balanced despite all the characters involved. Redmayne was truly a treat to watch on screen and his whimsical persona was a perfect match with his character and made it so much fun to see him running around trying to keep these creatures at bay. I thought Dan Fogler was great as well and provided the perfect amount of comic relief without it becoming too cheesy or a gimmick. I thoroughly enjoyed the film and I’m really looking forward to the next entry and how it’s going to blend in to the HP movies so at this point I’ve definitely bought in to the hype. 8/10
4K Presentation:
I loved this 4K version so much. I thought that it brought out the clarity and colors in every scene as well as all of the creatures throughout the film. The black levels were spot on and with a good part of this film being in darker settings it really made it easier to see a lot of the scenery. Bigger budget and CG driven films tend to lend themselves fantastically (No Pun Intended) to this format and this film was no different.
The 3D:
You can easily tell very early on that this movie was made with a 3D transfer in mind. Certain moments felt like the visuals were popping right out of the screen and there was nice depth between the foreground and background to make it a really fun experience. Unfortunately they don’t fully utilize it like Sony did with Ghostbusters and have the creatures in the film leave the frame of the scene. I think that it was a missed opportunity and would’ve been cool but it doesn’t take anything away from this great 3D transfer.
Special Features:
Before Harry Potter: A New Era of Magic Begins! – A really cool feature that goes into how this entry was developed and where the idea came from.
Characters – This a nice 5 part feature that looks at various characters and their background.
Creatures – A 7 part feature that looks at the Beasts of the film and how they were created and some of the design of them.
Design – A 6 part look at the production design of the film and how they managed to created a Harry Potter-esque look but for a new franchise.
Deleted Scenes – A pretty good amount of scenes here that actually have finished CG (or for the most part) which is not normal for deleted scenes.
