Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore review

FANTASTIC BEASTS: THE SECRETS OF DUMBLEDORE: 

A SLIGHT IMPROVEMENT OVER THE LAST FILM, BUT SADLY DOESN’T QUITE HAVE THE MAGIC THAT MADE HARRY POTTER SO CAPTIVATING! 

By Nico Beland

Movie Review: ** ½ out of 4

WARNER BROS. PICTURES

Eddie Redmayne, Jude Law, and Mads Mikkelsen in Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore

 

            The Wizarding World is back in Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore, the third installment of the Fantastic Beasts franchise chronicling a world of wizards long before Harry Potter. The film is once again directed by David Yates, who has also directed several Harry Potter films with Eddie Redmayne (Elizabeth: The Golden Age, The Theory of Everything, The Danish Girl) and Jude Law (The Talented Mr. Ripley, Cold Mountain, Sherlock Holmes 1 and 2) reprising their roles as Newt Scamander and Albus Dumbledore. 

            I’m not going to go into detail about my thoughts on every Harry Potter movie, because if I did this review would probably be like ten pages long (or longer), so condensed review of all the Harry Potter movies, I think they’re all really solid fantasy adventures that faithfully capture the spirit of J.K. Rowling’s books (I read a good chunk of them as a child around the time the films were coming out) with a lot of imagination, exciting action, and memorable stories and characters and despite the main series ending in 2011, the adventures of Harry, Ron, and Hermione are absolutely timeless, almost as much as Star Wars or The Lord of the Rings. 

            Obviously, because of Harry Potter’s success, it only makes sense to milk it as much as possible, in comes Fantastic Beasts, a series of prequel films loosely based on a book Rowling wrote of the same name. The first Fantastic Beasts movie, I thought was a decent film that expanded on the world of Harry Potter and while the characters weren’t nearly as memorable as the Harry Potter characters, they were extremely likable, the second one however, I think most people agree was a very disappointing, overcomplicated, and often dull follow-up that was too focused on Harry Potterfan service and references over telling an engaging story. 

            Which brings us to this film and the good news is The Secrets of Dumbledore is an improvement over Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald…the bad news is that’s kind of all it has going for it. This one at least has glimmers of that Harry Potter magic, and the acting is once again top notch, but sadly the Wizarding World magic is sprinkled into large chunks of exposition and dialogue that would have been fine in a book, but not in a feature film. 

            The film follows Albus Dumbledore (Law) enlisting the help of magizoologist, Newt Scamander (Redmayne) to lead a team of wizards, witches, and his muggle baker friend, Jacob Kowalski (Dan Fogler-Horton Hears a Who, Kung Fu Panda, The Walking Dead) to stop the powerful dark wizard, Gellert Grindelwald (Mads Mikkelsen-Casino Royale, Doctor Strange, Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, replacing Johnny Depp) who plots to seize control of the wizarding world. How? Through a dragon/deer creature that has the power to predict elections (Yes, really!).

            Oh, and while all that’s going on, Jacob is hoping to reconcile with his old flame, Queenie (Alison Sudol-Other People’s Children, Between Us, The Last Full Measure) who has been seduced by Grindelwald’s power. 

            The film also stars Ezra Miller (The Perks of Being a Wallflower, Trainwreck, DC Extended Universe) reprising his role as Credence Barebone, Callum Turner (Queen and Country, Green Room, Emma (2020)) reprising his role as Theseus Scamander, Jessica Williams (2 Dope Queens, Hot Tub Time Machine 2, Booksmart) as Professor Lally, and Katherine Waterston (Michael Clayton, Robot & Frank, Alien: Covenant) reprising her role as Tina Goldstein. 

            Overall, Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore is a slight improvement over the last film, and it does try to bring back some of that Harry Potter magic, but the plot is about as standard and forgettable as The Crimes of Grindelwald which doesn’t amount to much sadly. It isn’t a terrible movie, but it feels very uninspired and manufactured for the sake of making bank for Warner Bros. and it could really use some of that good old fashioned Wizarding World imagination and sense of fun. 

            To me, this is basically the Harry Potter equivalent of Star Wars: Episode I: The Phantom Menace as it relies on a lot (and I mean a lot) of exposition dumping and political talk. To the point where the climax is literally an election…from a franchise that gave us Harry Potter battling a giant snake and a war between wizards and Voldemort’s army. 

            I’ll give the first movie credit that it at least felt like an expansion on the Harry Potter universe and aside from some references and callbacks, it was doing its own thing. Crimes of Grindelwald and this movie just seemed like they were made because the studio really wanted to make more Harry Potter movies but without calling them Harry Potter. 

            The first Fantastic Beasts lives up to its title, a bunch of “Fantastic Beasts” are unleashed upon the wizarding world and Newt and friends have to catch them all (Kind of like a Harry Potter version of Pokémon!). This one, aside from a few scenes, there aren’t many “Fantastic Beasts” in this Fantastic Beasts movie and is instead about an army of wizards going up against an evil wizard and his dark forces (Didn’t we see that already in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2…and done a lot better in that movie?). 

            I had a problem with the Harry Potter callbacks in The Crimes of Grindelwald and honestly, I think they’re worse here. There’s nothing wrong with references and callbacks to your earlier films if done right, but if you don’t know when enough is enough, it gets old extremely fast, Remember Hogwarts? Remember Quidditch? Remember House Points? Remember Hufflepuff and Slytherin? Remember the music from Harry Potter? I’m serious, I got so sick of hearing the original Harry Potter music in this movie that I kept thinking “Man, I wish I was watching one of the regular Harry Potter movies instead of this slog!”. 

            I just saw Sonic the Hedgehog 2 last week which had a ton of references and callbacks, but they never overshadowed the story and characters. This along with Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker should be textbook examples of how not to do fan service in your successful film series. 

            If there’s one positive, I have is that the acting is really good. Jude Law does an excellent job as young Dumbledore and finds a good midway point between both of the actors who portrayed him in the original films, Redmayne is likable as this awkward but charming magizoologist, the actors playing Jacob and Queenie have great chemistry, and Mads Mikkelsen is amazing as Grindelwald and a huge improvement over Depp because while he is a powerhouse actor, I couldn’t take his version of the character seriously and his appearance seemed off, Mikkelsen is delightfully wicked and a lot more intimidating. 

            Sadly, despite the cast’s efforts, Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore is a mostly generic fantasy film that only Harry Potter purists should even bother to go see.