Fantastic Beasts - The Secrets Of Dumbledore

 

Dumb Or Dumbledore

Fantastic Beasts - 
The Secrets Of Dumbledore
USA 2022
Directed by David Yates
Warner Brothers Blu Ray Zone B

Warning: Spoilers ahead. And please keep in mind I wrote this one some time ago... before real life events moved on.

Fantastic Beasts - The Secrets Of Dumbledore is the third in the series of Harry Potter prequels written for the screen by the writer of the original novels, J. K. Rowling. Now, I absolutely loved the first film in this series (more so than the Harry Potter movies... I’m not exactly a fan of Potter and his fellow tykes) which I reviewed here but I thought the second movie, Fantastic Beasts - The Crimes Of Grindelwald (reviewed here), was a bit of a let down and felt like a stepping stone of a movie. This third installment in what I’m hoping will be running for the number of films originally planned, certainly works a heck of a lot better than the previous movie but, even though it’s way more entertaining, this one is a bit of a mess, to be honest. 

Once more, Grindelwald has changed his visage because of, presumably, Warner Brothers mixing up art and PR with certainly bizarre allegations made against Johnny Depp*. Why they think those audience members strangely not in the Depp camp would be unable to suspend disbelief like anyone else and not get the art mixed with the people behind it is beyond me but, whatever, he’s been replaced with Mads Mikkelsen... who, to be fair, always makes for a good bad guy. 

Among those back from the previous films are Eddie Redmayne as Newt, Dan Fogler as Jacob, Alison Sudol as Queenie and Jude Law as young Professor Dumbledore. Then there’s Ezra Miller, who seems to be on a real bender in real life with various criminal charges brought against him. Warner Brothers’ seem to be reacting to this in the same way as they have with Johnny Depp and they keep postponing The Flash*. However, he’s not got as much presence in this movie as he did in previous installments and, at the end of this one, there’s the open ended opportunity for his character to just dissappear from the films from now on (should Warner Brothers’ do the right thing and make some more of them). Since the script is credited as being written by J. K Rowling and Steve Kloves... but ‘based on’ a screenplay by J. K. Rowling, I can only assume some ‘PR idiots running scared’ studio politics forced a rewrite of the material to make some alterations to Rowling’s original intent? 

And then we have the most noticeable absence in the film... Newt’s love interest and quite strong protagonist of the previous movies, Tina, as played by Katherine Waterston, is almost entirely missing in action from this installment. She has one brief shot near the end and then a couple of minutes at the conclusion of the movie... her disappearance being ‘explained away’ as being that she’s now a very busy person. 

Really? I mean, WTF? 

She was one of the best characters in the movies and now she’s been shunted out. Now, there were the usual COVID delays on this movie, plus the politically motivated ones but I’m also hearing she disagreed with comments made by Rowling (and blown up bizarrely by social media trolls) and that she was deliberately sidelined. I don’t buy that... what have personal viewpoints got to do with making art (and the horrible box office which wags the dog, for that matter)? I suspect scheduling conflicts due to COVID may have been an issue and, again, I suspect it’s why we have the ‘based on a screenplay’ credit on this picture. 

The story itself seems a lot weaker than the previous two, with the ingenious device of making the plan of the protagonists proof against those who can see the future by not having a real plan and obfuscating it from those who are even supposed to be executing it... allowing for the convoluted stitching together of set pieces to remain unchallenged by any collective raising of eyebrows from the audience. It’s a sound concept though so... it just about works. Surprisingly, this doesn’t make the identity of the end game protagonist any less easy to see coming a mile off but, yeah, it’s not a film about surprising anybody, for sure. 

And it’s a big, dumb(ledore) Hollywood blockbuster but it looks fantastic, has a great score by regular composer James Newton Howard (occasionally referencing John Williams’ themes at certain key points... like the obvious one for scenes taking place at Hogwarts), some good staging of certain scenes and some really nice acting turns... if you want to see Eddie Redmayne scuttling sideways and dancing like a lobster as a mechanic of successfully executing a rescue operation, then this is definitely the film to see. 

All in all, I had a really great time with Fantastic Beasts - The Secrets Of Dumbledore and I think fans of the series will appreciate it. I will, however, say three things that I see as problems with it. One is the fact that, if the previous film felt like a stepping stone to something bigger... this doesn’t feel like anything bigger at all... it feels more like a compromised story with an open ended, semi-conclusion in case no more films in the series are green lit. 

Secondly, the motivations of the turncoat actions of Queenie in the previous film are almost completely not addressed. I’m still none the wiser as to why she joined up with Grindelwald at the end of the previous movie. No idea what that was about. 

Thirdly, the definite lack of presence of Katherine Waterston’s character in this really hurts the film. It just feels wrong and is very conspicuous... just not a good idea, at all. If an actor can’t fit in with your schedules and she’s essential to the movie (as I feel Waterston was) then rearrange your schedules, is my advice. Other than those three things... an enjoyable movie and I certainly hope that Warner Brothers’, despite the low box office returns on this one, get off their high horse and get on with the series without worrying about what their actors and writers are doing behind the scenes (which is, frankly, none of their’s... or the audience’s, business). 

*Yeah okay... that kinda shows the huge gap between when I wrote this review & when I’m publishing it.