Fantastic Beasts: 21 WTF Moments
Two words: Anus Flames.
Fantastic Beasts is almost as surprising as it is brilliant. Where else could you hope to see a family-friendly film in which Eddie Redmayne performs a sexy dance for a rhino-slug monster? Where else can innocent non-magical folk be threatened with anus fires and having their lives ruined by kleptomaniac mole creatures or memory erasing giant eagles? This is not a world for No-Majs.
Perhaps more surprising is how great it is: the film might be different from the Harry Potter films (and that really ought to be classed as a good thing, regardless of what any grumps tell you), but it captures the magical spirit of the original series and opens new, exciting doors that haven't been open before. And if you can't get hyped for Johnny Depp playing a peroxide blonde wizard Hitler, there's something wrong with you.
But for all of its great moments, the film is still full of plot-holes, weird narrative conceits and flat-out jaw-dropping weirdness that will stay with you long after it finishes. And nit-picking at them is precisely why we're all Harry Potter universe fans - as if JK Rowling didn't know that!
Here are the biggest WTF moments from Fantastic Beasts And Where To Find Them...
21. The Worst Customs Official (With The Weirdest Voice)
As the film opens (after Johnny Depp's brief first appearance killing some random victims with a single swoop of his incredibly powerful wand he then forgets), we see Newt entering America with his suitcase of wonders in tow. He stands in the customs queue, switches the case to Muggle-Friendly and hands it over for inspection to what must surely be a thorough official guarding the border.
Except he's clearly not that thorough, given that he doesn't at all inspect the suitcase. He just looks at the top layer, failing quite impressively to do his job, despite having suspicions that Newt might be a bit odd. There's obviously no way he could be hiding anything in there, because everything he can see is nondescript and non-suspicious.
Couldn't this customs official - who for some reason was overdubbed with a comedy gruff voice at some point in post-production - just have been confunded? It would at least make him look less idiotic.