Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore
Starring Eddie Redmayne, Jude Law, Mads Mikkelsen, Ezra Miller
Directed by David Yates
When it comes to the wizarding world of Harry Potter, I consider myself a pureblood Muggle: I never read the books, only saw each movie once, and honestly don't understand the overall appeal. Yet, as I say, "to each their own," and I can appreciate a film that's not particularly my cup of tea. I rather enjoyed all the "Harry Potter" movies (although if you gave me a scene and asked which "Harry Potter" film it was in, I legitimately couldn't tell you). Thinking the "Harry Potter" universe was over with...well...the final "Harry Potter" movie, I felt like I could close that chapter - but then "Fantastic Beasts" came along, a prequel series centering around magizoologist Newt Scamander and taking place seventy years before young Harry became a wizard. The first film was fun, fascinating, and full of whimsical wonder and magic, re-capturing that old feeling from the "Harry Potter" films. The second film - "The Crimes of Grindelwald" - proved that the magic died with the previous film. I can hardly remember anything about that film, but maybe my mind was wiped with magic. In any event, "The Secrets of Dumbledore" has its own charms, but not even those charms were enchanting enough to make me believe that the magic returned, and rather it seemed to want to make a political statement rather than get us lost in the magic.
While Gellert Grindelwald wants to wage war against the Muggle community, Albus Dumbledore (Jude Law) wants to prevent it - but he's unable to do so due to a blood pact he made with Grindelwald decades earlier. He enlists Newt Scamander (Eddie Redmayne) to stop Grindelwald's plan, but Newt isn't alone - he enlists the help of his brother Theseus (Callum Turner), his assistant Bunty (Victoria Yeates), his Muggle best friend Jacob (Dan Folger), Hogwarts professor Lally Hicks (Jessica Williams), and French wizard Yusuf Kama (William Nadylam). Together, they try to find a way to stop Grindelwald, who can now see the future thanks to the magical Qilin, that he'll also use in order to usurp authority and claim himself as the Supreme Mugwump. Meanwhile, Jacob tries to reach out to his ex-fiancee Queenie (Alison Sudol), and Credence (Ezra Miller) seeks revenge against Albus, all to Grindelwald's advantage.
"Fantastic Beasts 3" seems to just slog around, wasting it's almost two-and-a-half hour runtime with meaningless side quests and too many characters to offer any sort of development to any of them, as it churns along to its "Scooby Doo"-esque conclusion. The magic is few and far between, and instead there's lengthy dialogues of expository comments, and for a film that boasts "the secrets of Dumbledore," there doesn't seem to be any secrets to be told - even for this Muggle, nothing came as a surprise, because I think they were hinted in with the second film, but again I can hardly remember it, it seemed like a faint memory. Maybe the secret is how - in a scant few years - Dumbledore goes from looking like Jude Law to looking like Michael Gambon. That's not really a secret I want to know about.
Apart from that, the film splits itself into so many directions it's hard to really care about anything happening. You have Jacob and Queenie's unrequited love, despite Queenie ditching Jacob to work with the evil Grindelwald, and Jacob pining for her still. Then there's Newt's brother Theseus, who ends up in prison somehow, and Newt has to rescue him by mimicking a lobster-like creature. Then there's the struggle between Credence and Albus, which seems as an afterthought throughout most of the film. Finally there's the main event, and tell me if you've heard this before: they have to stop Grindelwald, who wishes for the eradication of the Muggles, from taking control of the magical world through deceptive means, all the while talking about how corrupt the system is and pretty much doing everything short of wearing a red hat with the words "Make Magicians Great Again."
"Fantastic Beasts" started off centering around Newt Scamander, and Eddie Redmayne manages to pull off the lovable aloofness well, but as the films progressed it seemed that they went from telling an original story to including so much "Harry Potter" fan service I was surprised to not see Harry Potter appear as a child in the final scene. Scamander isn't the main character in his own franchise, but instead it's all about Dumbledore, and Jude Law does perform admirably, but you can't help but feel he's stealing the show. Mads Mikkelsen is a welcome addition as the new Grindelwald (albeit he was added into the film due to scrupulous means), as he seems to be a dead-on lookalike for another powerful real-life politician who's currently trying to take over a smaller country. The rest of the cast exists purely for...existing...and no one really advances in the means of development whatsoever.
Thankfully, the production design team of Stuart Craig and Neil Lamont provides a glorious backdrop in which to witness this so-so story, so at least it was watchable due to the dazzling set designs. Also, the magic - when it happens - is pretty neat to see, even if it seems like they're stealing from Doctor Strange with the mirror dimension.
Yet it's also events behind the scenes that've soured the "Fantastic Beasts" name, and possibly ending it before it's final. There's supposed to be two more films, but Warner Bros. is holding off on greenlighting the final two until after the results of the third one come in - and it doesn't look promising. "The Secrets of Dumbledore" debuted not just the weakest out of all the "Fantastic Beasts" films, but the "Harry Potter" ones as well. It may be too soon to say that the magic is truly dead, but it'll need a miracle.
Back to the juicy part: controversy. "Fantastic Beasts" is littered with behind-the-scenes events that've soured moviegoers from the project. First of all is J.K. Rowling - the author of the "Harry Potter" novels - herself. She's stuck her foot in her mouth countless times, most notably making negative comments regarding the transgender community, drawing ire not just from fans, but from Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson, Rupert Grint, and Eddie Redmayne as well. Her novels really spoke to the down-trodden, those who felt like they weren't normal, and felt they had an ally in Rowling - but it doesn't appear to be.
Then there's the firing of Johnny Depp due to the lies that his ex-wife, Amber Heard, made against him. He appeared as Grindelwald in the second "Fantastic Beasts" film, and even started work in filming this one as well, before he was let go (although, since he started filming one scene, he supposedly was paid the entire $16 million owed to him thanks to his "pay or play" contract). He was replaced by Mads Mikkelsen, and while many felt it was a terrible choice, I actually think Mikkelsen played a better Grindelwald. He was more grounded, more realistic, and Mikkelsen can really play the bad guy to the hilt. It's terrible that he was brought in (by no fault of his own) under such circumstances, but again, many fans felt betrayed that they'd turn their back on Depp.
Finally there's the newest controversy concerning Ezra Miller and his frequent arrests in Hawaii. While his future is pretty much up in the air, I wouldn't be surprised if he was "canceled" due to his continual, baffling real-life choices. It only added a sour note as he obviously couldn't be replaced in the film, and his role in the movie was a detriment as a whole.
When you have more people talking about the events happening around the movie - and not the movie itself - you know you have problems. Seeing the poor reception, it looks like "Fantastic Beasts" has truly lost its magic, and following the likes of the "Divergent" series, looks like we'll never get a full conclusion to the story.
The Score: B-
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