WE’VE seen it all before, some might say too often. And the fact of its having been written by JK Rowling, also one of its producers, lifts expectations.

It’s fair to say that without the special effects and imaginative design of its imaginary creatures (my favourite is a mantis-like little green lockpicker that is both insect and plant!) “Fantastic Beasts…” would be just another potboiler, differentiated from the Harry Potter movies by destruction of the kind that several decades ago wore out its welcome in movies showing extra-terrestrial ballyhoo and depredations on our fragile little planet.

This time it’s set in New York in 1926, where Hogwarts graduate Newt Scamander (Eddie Redmayne) has come to capture a specimen of the fantastic beast he needs to complete the collection he has spent the last couple of years accumulating. Clearing Customs, a clumsily-conceived version of the old wrong suitcase gag introduces Kowalski (Dan Fogler) who’s coming to the US to establish a continental bakery – if the bank will give him a loan. At the American wizardry office, Tina (Katherine Waterston) gets the gig of escorting Newt around the building en route to Arizona in search of that last fantastic beast. That trio is the film’s principal characters.

The opening passage shows newspaper headlines about a famous explorer presumed dead in some tropical jungle. This too is a well-worn movie gag. Right at the end, he shows up just in time to get arrested. I can reveal where he was. He was in Australia having imported two little dogs without correct quarantine documentation.

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