David Yates returns with his fifth entry in the Harry Potter universe, a film desperate to shrug off the massive weight of expectations being dropped on it. Yates’ direction is as great as always and Eddie Redmayne seems perfectly built for this world, but with a running time dragging well past two hours this spends too much time sifting through low stakes adventures in the second act. As an introduction to a new period of the franchise though, Fantastic Beasts And Where To Find Them deftly passes the test. With this, Inherent Vice and the upcoming Alien: Covenant, Katherine Waterston may have already surpassed her “Next Big Thing” status too.