Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore - Film Review
Like many people of my generation, I grew up with the Harry Potter books and absolutely fell in love with J. K. Rowling’s wizarding world. I read all of the books and saw all of the movies. To this day, I still look back on Rowling’s works and hold that series as one of the highest standards of creative fiction. With that said, I was a little worried about the Fantastic Beasts franchise, but I went into it with an open mind. The series has struggled thus far, with the last movie being so bad it almost became funny to laugh at. I went into this hoping that Rowling would recapture the magic of before. Unfortunately, we may be beyond the pale at this point.
1Where You Can Find It: I saw this in theater where it is currently available to see, but it is expected to be available for streaming on HBO Max in late May 2022.
General Information
Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore is an action-adventure film that was released on 15 April 2022. It was directed by Harry Potter film veteran, David Yates, and is based on a screenplay by Harry Potter
creator, J. K. Rowling (who also co-produced). George Richmond provided
the cinematography for this film, while James Newton Howard did the
scoring. It was produced and distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures. This
is the third entry in the Fantastic Beasts franchise, which is a spin-off of the Harry Potter franchise. As of 16 May 2022, the film has accrued a box office haul of $376 million (globally) against a budget of around $200 million. Its critical reception has been fairly mixed with a 47 Metascore on Metacritic alongside an identical 47% Tomatometer rating on Rotten Tomatoes.
It’s worth noting that this entry in the series carries quite a bit of baggage with it, which may have hurt its overall reception. First and foremost, the series’ main antagonist, Grindelwald, had to swap out its actor from Johnny Depp to Mads Mikkelsen due to the controversy surrounding Depp’s ongoing allegations of domestic violence between him and actress, Amber Heard. Additionally, J.K. Rowling has been under near-constant fire for allegedly making comments that may be considered transphobic. Another star in the series, Ezra Miller, has also been in the news both before and after the film released for multiple criminal acts which included assaulting women and disorderly conduct. Lastly, the previous film’s reception was less than stellar as Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald was met with a veritable shrug, although it’s interesting that it currently has a higher Metascore than this film does.
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| Albus should be able to call on the best of the Ministry of Magic, but he’ll take this crew instead |
Although it’s far from perfect, I rather enjoyed this film’s plot as compared to Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald’s. Much of the convoluted nature of its predecessor has been forgotten for a fairly straight-forward tale about a ragtag group of heroes stopping an evil sorcerer. With that said, there are a lot of inconsistencies as entire portions of the story don’t matter at all, while characters frequently don’t behave like they should at times. The climax is particularly baffling as both villains and heroes suddenly pull their punches and angry mobs abruptly change their minds within a matter of minutes.
It's come up before in criticism of the previous film, but this latest entry further hammers home the point that Newt Scamander has lost relevance in his own series. It’s becoming clearer and clearer that this series is now about Albus Dumbledore, which would be like having Hermione Granger become the protagonist of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. At this juncture, it feels as though the title “Fantastic Beasts” should’ve been let go after the initial film, but Warner Bros. kept it purely for the sake of consistency.
A final alarming point I wish to bring up is that this may be the first film I’ve ever seen that works so hard to strategically make itself easier to censor. Fans of the Harry Potter series will be aware that Dumbledore and Grindelwald were romantically involved prior to the events of Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. Although films have had segments cut in order to appease foreign censors before, I’ve never seen anything as blatant as this one as viewers can see how the writers strategically placed dialogue involving homosexuality at the beginning of conversations so that they can be more easily snipped out. I begrudgingly accept that some countries may not be comfortable with all material featured in books and/or film, but it’s very troubling to see film makers now actively anticipating censorship.
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| Newt’s niffler continues to be the true hero of this series, of course |
Another fascinating bit of eye candy worth taking in is all the spells and enchantments we get to see as the story progresses. I was particularly taken with a magical book that transports people across the globe, but I was equally fascinated with a suitcase capable of flooding entire streets with pastries. Even some of the lighter stuff like firework spells or combat really pop, which strangely reminds me more of Chris Columbus’ take on special effects than David Yates’.
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| Eddie Redmayne still has the moves |
Although there was much fanfare about Mads Mikkelsen replacing Johnny Depp, the end-product is fairly ho-hum. Mikkelsen essentially plays a more relaxed Hannibal Lecter that seemingly lacks the charisma to pose a political threat in the wizarding world. If one were to have gone into this film without having seen the previous entries, they would arguably wonder why other wizards follow Grindelwald as he lacks much presence. Even worse, the chemistry between Mikkelsen and Jude Law is nonexistent, which is only hurt further by the fact that the two are rarely in the same frame together.
The Best of the Best: Eddie Redmayne dancing with manticores.
The Worst of the Worst: Embracing censorship.
Calhooey Score: 5/10 - Average
Would I Recommend?
 5 |
Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore course-corrects from its excessively convoluted predecessor, but it’s mired in inconsistencies and relatively middling performances by most of its actors. On its own, this is a fairly standard adventure film, and is worth renting/streaming for Harry Potter fans. People who don’t like Harry Potter, or haven’t seen the previous films, probably won’t understand everything that’s going on.
Spoiler Comments
- The qilin mother having twins off-screen was both unexpected and incredibly convenient.
- Man…I thought the English wizards were brutal for putting their prisoners on an island-prison filled with soul-sucking ghosts, but the Germans don’t mess around.
- What did Newt and his brother accomplish in the opening act besides his brother getting arrested? I feel like one could cut all of the scenes involving Theseus from the plot and it would have virtually no impact on the rest of the movie.
- The International Confederation of Wizards has a weird way of choosing its new leader. I’m totally down with them letting a magical deer choose who gets to be top dog, but why do the candidates feel the need to run for office like they’re angling for votes?
- I would’ve totally cheered if Kowalski just walked up to Grindelwald at that dinner in Berlin and socked him one.
- That was nice of Grindelwald’s people to not kill Newt when they hit him in the back of the head. The angry mob even carefully stepped around him.
- I suppose the favor was returned when everyone held their fire when Grindelwald was fleeing Bhutan.
- Grindelwald’s first act as leader of all wizards is to perform an unforgivable curse on a muggle who can’t fight back and everyone seemed pretty okay with this.
- Remember: this was essentially streamed across the entire planet and no one seemed bothered by this.
- I can’t believe Grindelwald and his people were surprised when Kama betrayed them.
- The dude practically showed up at their doorstep with a sign screaming “I’m a double-agent!”
- Speaking of betrayal: Queenie switching sides yet again was kind of dumb, but it never made sense why she switched sides in Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald either.
- I was really hoping the qilin would bow before Kowalski. Jacob should totally be made an honorary wizard at this point.
- Am I the only one that was scratching their head over the fact that the mob of voters/supporters who were cheering when Grindelwald won his election and preaching genocide became equally excited when another candidate with an exact opposite platform later won?
- Also, I’m not sure I even recall the significance of the International Confederation of Wizards. What exactly do they do? I don’t recall them playing a factor when Voldemort was committing acts of terror on England.
(2) Weiss, J. (2022, April 11). Albus Dumbledore and crew image. SYFY. Retrieved from: https://www.syfy.com/syfy-wire/fantastic-beasts-the-secrets-of-dumbledore-what-to-know.
(3) Haasch, P. (2022, April 21). Niffler image. Insider. Retrieved from: https://www.insider.com/creatures-animals-monsters-in-fantastic-beasts-the-secrets-of-dumbledore-2022-4.
(4) FantasticBeasts. (2022, March 25). Eddie Redmayne dancing with manticores gif. Tenor. Retrieved from: https://tenor.com/view/sneak-newt-scamander-eddie-redmayne-fantastic-beasts-secrets-of-dumbledore-gif-25213836.
(5) Jones, G. (2022, April 22). Dumbledore and Kowalski image. SYV News. Retrieved from: https://syvnews.com/entertainment/movies/fantastic-beasts-3-is-a-fantastic-flop-filmaniacs/article_7bac4027-a4fb-5b25-953e-41e872d62ee2.html.
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