Chris At The Pictures

This new yarn from J.K. Rowling is akin to retreating from 2016’s horrid winter into an old blanket. It’s warm and cosy with familiarity, but the loose threads are becoming more obvious, and the cold still seeps in through little holes. Eddie Redmayne stars as magizoologist Newt Scamander. Magizoologist Newt Scamander stars as the Eleventh incarnation of Doctor Who. He’s got the floppy hair, tweed suit, ungainly limbs, whimsical shyness, and even a sonic screwdriver (well, it’s technically a wand, but it’s still essentially a glowing stick he uses to open locked doors).

He also has his own TARDIS, albeit in the form of a magically enhanced suitcase, home to a menagerie of magical beasts. The contents of the case are let loose on 1920s New York, where Scamander is befriended by wide-eyed ‘nomaj’ Jacob Kowalski (Dan Fogler) and hounded by plucky ex-Auror Tina Goldstein (Katherine Waterstone). As the trio scurry around in an attempt to return the creatures safely to the suitcase, another kind of sorcery stalks the streets. A dark force is causing calamity, and the Magical Congress of the United States sends the mysterious Percival Graves (Colin Farrell) to investigate. A second Salem movement is also on the rise, and, within its ranks, a reclusive teenager (Ezra Miller) secretly rebels against his oppressive mother (a ferociously intense Samantha Morton).

I’ve made it sound like you need a whole book to even understand the setup, but the film eases you into the flow with a good helping of earnest adventure before the underlying plot strands begin to convalesce. Much like the later Potter films, Beasts strikes a good balance between child-like immersion in the sparkling spectacle of a magical world, whilst still drawing out the darkness inherent in that universe. The production design alternates between gloomy, effervescent and gothic, and it’s very hard not to be won over by James Newton Howard’s soaring score.

When any franchise enters a new era, there’s always a great deal made of ‘bridging the gap’. With Newton Howard providing the musical connection, the character who guides us through is not Redmayne, but Miller, playing the sunken-faced and scary-haired Credence Barebone. Carrying more than a little Draco Malfoy in his glare and posture, he works wonders with a subplot that is occasionally misjudged in its intensity. The Potter universe is no stranger to darker themes (each film after Prisoner of Azkaban thrived increasingly on this), but the shadows here exist outside the wizarding world, in a place that feels all too real. It’s especially jarring when bookended with scenes of Newt, Tina and Jacob capering about. Still, the dénouement of Miller, Morton and Farrell’s relationship allows the movie to become Return of the Jedi for about two minutes (you’ll know once you’ve seen it), which is rarely a bad thing.

The entire arc of Farrell’s character is revealed the instant we see his haircut, but he’s clearly having good fun. He certainly draws a far more rounded character than his nemesis, Newt; a Tumblr fanfic creation brought to life. Any investment we have in our heroes is channelled through Dan Fogler, who has come a heck of a long way since I first saw him in Fanboys. His performance carries nuance, genuine emotion, and charm that doesn’t require a single wand wave.

Sadly, subtleties in acting and well-crafted details in the film’s milieu are betrayed by broader strokes. Small, delicately handled moments between Jacob and Tina’s sister, Queenie, are a treat, at odds with the reductive thumbnails of their overarching development (or lack thereof). Likewise, any display by the titular beasts is at its most endearing when focusing on Scamander’s tiny, pocket-borne Bowtruckle or the gold-loving, platypus-like Niffler. By the time massive monsters like the Erumpent begin crashing through Central Park with no real consequence, any charm is wearing off.

Even the city itself has this problem: the tiny shop windows and foggy back alleys are unique and intriguing, but the skyscrapers and lines of traffic feel copy-pasted (probably because they are). By the time we get to the effects-heavy finale, it’s only the emotional nature of the climax that redeems its use of 2016’s default antagonist; a CGI cloud. If I may be allowed to return to the Doctor Who analogy, Beasts’ final act is very much in the same vein as a ‘monster of the week’ episode: a fair bit of crying, some very iffy special effects, and, most importantly, an emphasis on empathy over any kind of confused pseudo-logic. Thankfully, its spirit is less Stephen Moffat and more Russell T. Davies. If there really are four more of these to be conjured, let’s hope it stays that way.

Britain’s finest comedy character since Alan Partridge returns for a big screen outing as face-scrunching as his finest television moments. Ricky Gervais lifts David Brent from the confines of beloved Slough to take his band, ‘Foregone Conclusion’, on a pitiful tour of the South East, taking heed of Partridges’ own cinematic outing, Alpha Papa, not to stray far from the drab greyness of England in the process. Much like Coogan’s film took great strides to inhabit the body of an authentic action movie, Life on the Road makes a real effort to align itself with the rock band belligerence of This Is Spinal Tap. 

This isn’t to say the laughter lies in Brent’s music being sloppily written or shockingly performed (in fact, largely the opposite is true), but rather in the way his trademark misunderstanding of political correctness and woefully misplaced self-belief is woven expertly into genuinely catchy songs. You won’t realise you’ve been subconsciously knee-tapping to tunes including Please Don’t Make Fun of the Disabled until the camera flits from a blissfully engrossed Brent to the faces of the on-screen audience (at least, those who bothered to turn up) or those of his bandmates valiantly rapping, plucking and drumming through the embarrassment.

While the various gigs work as self-contained set pieces, everything else in-between is classic Brent, his gurning laughter and po-faced refusal of reason eliciting everything from reflective smirks, sudden bursts of belly laughter and, of course, full-body cringing. A low-key breakdown in a psychiatrist’s office is the epitome of Gervais’ creation, and a tattoo parlour mishap transfigures the midway point between Slough and Reading from a mark on the AA roadmap into a side-splitting piece of wordplay.

Yes, references to Slough are plentiful (and I think we can agree that any Brent story would feel empty without them), but no-one should go into this expecting a visit to the Wernham Hogg offices or appearances from classic cast members. The ‘Sergio Giorigini’ jacket is back, and a comedy character from Gervais’ XFM days is revived in toe-curling fashion, but there’s an absence of overwrought pandering to nostalgia; a real breath-freshener in a summer so irritably reliant on raiding your childhood toy box for inspiration. The new characters such as Tom Bennett’s Nigel (a cubicle screwball who nurses a slavish devotion to The Brentmeister General) and Ben Bailey Smith’s ambitious and exasperated rapper, Dom, may not hold the same side-line interest of Tim or Gareth, but the mere fact we’re getting entirely new creations in lieu of rehashed material is reason enough to enjoy their company. Brent aside, Dom is the only character to have a fully-fleshed out arc, also delivering superb raps both in the midst of the endlessly quotable Equality Street and in a last-ditch attempt to break free from the band.

No, you didn’t misread that; I did in fact claim that David Brent, one of the most reliably one-note personalities in comedy actually develops. Sure, it’s a rather predictable series of events, but the very last frame is a short but sweet adage to the character that may require a little eye-drying. Maybe I’ve binge-watched the entire original series too recently or perhaps I’m aching for a more idiosyncratic outing for British comedy than the ho-hum, cameo-adorned sheen of Absolutely Fabulous: The Movie, but I felt very much at home watching Life on the Road. In spite of its front-loaded laugh graph and the consistently, deliberately dull Office-style visuals lending a little less than a cinematic feel, it more than makes the grade, causing any memory of Gervais’ failed Netflix feature, Special Correspondents, to evaporate on contact.