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.

Indiana Jones And The Dial Of Destiny

Lost Arky Medium Spiral

Indiana Jones And
The Dial Of Destiny
Directed by James Mangold
USA  2023 Paramount/Lucasfilm
UK cinema release print

Warning: One big spoiler from which you can infer the ultimate fate of one of the characters.

Okay then... lets do this. I love the Indiana Jones films but I was kinda worried that both Spielberg and Lucas were stepping away from this one (although I think Spielberg was on this one as executive producer or some such). I’ll get to my main worry later because, in a way, it’s a bit of a spoiler so, you know, I’ll leave it to near the end.

I won’t say too much about the plot of Indiana Jones And The Dial Of Destiny other than it involves a typical 1980s style quest narrative of putting together bits of an artefact before the bad guys... who in this case are the Nazis, despite the majority of the film being set in 1969. And that the artefact in question is the titular dial, aka an invention Archimedes designed called the Antikythera, although it serves a different function in the film to what it was used for in real life. And that’s me done on the story.

Let’s get to the actors.

Harrison Ford is pretty great in this and he’s ably supported by someone called Phoebe Waller-Bridge playing his god daughter Helena. Also, we have Toby Jones in the sequences of the film set in 1939 and Mads Mikkelsen playing a Nazi rocket scientist spanning both 1939 and 1969, who is the main villain of the piece. Anybody who’s seen Mikkelsen play villains will know he’s really good at this kind of thing and this role is no exception.

Then there’s Antonio Banderas who, honestly, is a really great actor... a pity then that he’s totally wasted in this movie. I wish his character would have been written as someone with greater importance to the story. And there are also a couple of actors returning too. John Rhys-Davies returns playing Indy’s friend Sallah for a third time and... yeah, I’ll leave the other returning actor a mystery but, you will be expecting it.

The film is full of action although, the formula seems a little different. It felt a bit like it wasn’t quite as ‘action and plot in overdrive’ as the other four movies and I think it suffers somewhat from this, truth be told. But it’s fine... it doesn’t get boring and Indy fans should be enthralled with the journey this movie takes them on. There are a few problems with the movie too, though...

Okay, my cousin in Australia, who saw it a number of hours before me and who loved it, warned me up front so I didn’t simmer in my own anger for twenty minutes like he did. A big problem is that the Paramount Pictures mountain logo doesn’t transform into the first shot of the movie like the other four films do. This is pretty much like watching a Bond movie without the famous signature tune and gun barrel walk at the start (and we know how that turned out when they tried it on two of the weakest movies in the Bond franchise). So, yeah, that is a pretty anger inducing phenomenon, for sure.

Secondly, the famous shadow silhouettes which Spielberg always used to foreshadow Indy’s entrances at various parts of the movies are completely gone too. Which is annoying and I’d go further and say that, for all the action and dialogue scenes, nothing quite seems as simple as the way Spielberg and his cinematographer would have shot it. It feels elaborately constructed rather than just being elaborately constructed with that fine air of simplicity that made them feel as breezy as the 1930s adventure serials on which they were based. Which is a shame but...like I said... it’s an okay film.

Let me now address two generally cited problems with the film which seem to have come up on social media but which I really don’t think are really a problem at all. One is the ‘younged up Harrison Ford’ CGI. I mean yeah, it’s never great when they do this in movies but, honestly, it’s really not all that bad for the majority of those scenes in the film. I mean, yes, there were a couple of moments where he looked like a fake modern computer game but, for the most part, you should be able to suspend your disbelief enough to get caught up in the action. It’s basically fine... I’m not a fan of this kind of stuff but it suffices here just as big wire cables to hold up the spaceships sufficed in films of the 1930s-1960s. Just ignore it.

Secondly, the last twenty or so minutes of the movie seems to have divided people. All I will say is that it’s traditional for an Indiana Jones movie to build towards a fanciful conclusion. I had the same disappointment when I first saw Indiana Jones And The Last Crusade... which I thought had an absolute rubbish ending. Angels and Sankara Stones I could buy into but ancient knights preserved through the centuries was just silly. I much preferred the next one because the alien at the end seemed a far more sensible option. So all I will say is, the first three movies had religious endings of a sort and the last two movies have similarly fantastical endings which are based on pseudo-scientific wish fulfilment (which you probably will see coming a long way before it happens). Yes, the last twenty minutes or so will cross a line for some people but I think, if you’re going to have this sequence in a movie, then this is rendered as credibly as you could hope for. I didn’t mind it at all.

What I did have a problem with was John Williams wonderful score to the film. I love Williams’ Indy scores but this one felt a little overly familiar. I mean, yes, if you’re going to reference things from previous films then it absolutely is the right decision to score it with a bit of leitmotif which is relevant from the source score. However, I didn’t like the fact that I kept also hearing things which weren’t linked to a specific reference also turning up. For instance, I don't want to be seeing a car chase and then have musical cues like Escape From Venice and Belly Of The Steel Beast (both from Last Crusade) interpolated into the score. It just reminds you of the other movie when it doesn’t have a link so... yeah... found that a bit disconcerting, to be honest.

Okay, there are a few more minor problems also like anachronisms in terms of the time setting throughout the movie (police car livery, makes of gun... that kind of thing) but I don't know how many of these were actually genuine mistakes as opposed to dumbing things down for the audience for greater clarity... so I think I’ll stay off that subject. And now we get to the big spoiler so, yeah, don’t read further if you don’t want to know.

My biggest worry about this one was that they were going to kill off Indiana Jones... not because it didn’t feel right but because it would completely break continuity with the Young Indiana Jones TV show where we know that Indy lives to tell his stories from the perspective of the 1990s (as played by both George Hall and, in one episode, Harrison Ford himself). Especially since the last movie validated the series as continuity in that events from at least one episode are mentioned and, similarly, this movie has its own visual reference to the show. All I will say to others worried about how this movie keeps continuity with that TV show is... it absolutely does. Which is a big spoiler in itself I guess but, the movie doesn’t contradict the timeline in any way that I could see, so have no worries there.

And that’s about all I’ve got to say about this one other than, Indiana Jones And The Dial Of Destiny is an enjoyable enough romp but, for me, it’s easily the weakest of the Indiana Jones films and I won’t be rushing back to the cinema for a repeat viewing. I’ll catch up with it again when I show it to my parents on Blu Ray. It’s a nice enough film for sure and it certainly has its moments but, for me, the writing and direction didn’t come close to the earlier films. It’s not the years it’s the mileage.

Doctor Strange

Benedict In Monks

Doctor Strange
2016 USA  Directed by Scott Derrickson
UK cinema release print.

Doctor Strange is one of those comic book characters who I loved as a kid and I got quite excited when I’d heard Johnny Depp was in consideration for the role. I wasn’t too disappointed when he exited the scene because, frankly, Benedict Cumberbatch is one of those actors who you know will do a great job with any material he’s given and I could see how the arrogance his Sherlock character projected would be something which could really help bring the pre-magical version of Dr. Stephen V. Strange to life (the V stands for Vincent and that was who the original look of the character in those early 1960s appearances in Strange Tales, which I loved so much in reprint form, was based on... Vincent Price).

Now, I used to love these comics because Doctor Strange could jump out of his physical body and do battle on the astral planes, while somebody was hanging around and guarding his physical form so it was kept safe from harm. As a young 7 or 8 year old, of course, I was all about things like astral projection and ‘out of the body’ experiences so, when you had a Marvel superhero who could do all that stuff, it was a treat.

I went to the cinema on the first night of release in the UK, which was unusual enough in that it was a Tuesday, because I just couldn’t wait to see how this character fits into and pushes the boundaries of the Marvel Cinematic Universe and the answer, on both those counts, was... well, actually pretty well. Scott Derrickson, who directed this wonderful movie, has actually treated the material with the respect it deserves and you get a real feeling of those early short strips co-created by Stan Lee and, as importantly (perhaps more so), original Spider-Man artist Steve Ditko, who helped write and then drew the strips. They were pretty much a guide to the psychedelic world of the spirit in its hippiest, trippiest form but, a good few years before all that wave of counter culture hit (I’d personally say that certain sequences in Roger Corman’s Edgar Allan Poe cycle of movies also foresaw and possibly ‘usher’ed in the birth of psychedelia... possibly as influenced by the colour work that Mario Bava brought to the cinema and which the people at AIP studios at the time were more than aware of).

The movie really does those early 1963 and 1964 tales justice and the origin is pretty much the same as the one depicted in the comics, although I believe The Ancient One was originally based in the Himalayas and, either way, he was most certainly an old man...not Tilda Swinton, who plays the role in the film. And that’s not a dig by the way... the casting of the always brilliant Tilda is a really shrewd one, especially since the wonderful Rachel McAdams plays the only other female character in this movie and she’s pretty much wasted in how little screen time she has for the majority of the story. We also have the amazing Chiwetel Ejiofor, a villainous Mads Mikkelsen and a very funny Benedict Wong in the cast. Along with Cumberbatch, absolutely nailing Strange as you would expect from him, they have a really great ensemble group of actors here... at least two or three of whom will definitely need to come back for further Marvel movies.

I do have a few disappointments in the film but they are really minor. I’ll just get them out of the way now.

Okay... so somewhere in The Avengers (aka Marvel’s Avengers Assemble and reviewed here), I’m pretty sure Doctor Strange is mentioned in the helicarrier (also in Captain America: The Winter Soldier, reviewed here... but that’s a different issue). Now the Stark Tower wasn’t rebuilt as The Avengers Tower until after the events that took place in that movie so... how can a ‘pre-heroed up’ version of the character be looking out on a New York skyline that includes The Avenger’s Tower? Surely the timeline here doesn’t make sense and is a bit of a... well, a huge continuity error? I may be wrong but that kind of hit me between the eyes when I was looking at this movie in cinemas.

The other thing is that the tone of the story seems a bit... hmmm... somehow a bit too ‘even’. The magical battles are really something special in that they’ve done it all superbly... well okay, the astral plane versions of the characters aren't totally white ghosts like they were in the comics but what they’ve done here gets the message across pretty well and probably appears a lot more acceptable on screen than taking the look straight from the page, is my guess. However, there doesn’t seem to be much contrast within the scenes... with the last third of the movie being a few battles at different locations following on in quick succession without any real contrast in the sequences. I felt it needed just a little more ‘oomph and rest’ between set pieces to give you time to breathe and pace things a little more... thus enhancing the action sequences when they come...  but that didn’t quite get that feel here so it almost threatens to become somewhat less than the sum of its parts on occasion.

A third thing is problematic purely because I knew the early comics. There’s a character in here and, as soon as I heard his name, I knew where the story arc was going to be taking him... I won’t reveal the character name here because if you know the comics you’ll know it already... and I don’t want to put in any spoilers here. I didn’t know if they were going to be saving a certain ‘turning point’ for that character for a later movie or maybe they were going to go the full Green Lantern movie route and have that character do his thing in an epilogue scene. Well, this movie has two post-movie scenes, as do a lot of MCU movies these days. One superb one in the middle of the credits with exactly the Marvel character I had suspected would turn up making an appearance and gluing it together with one of next year’s MCU movies... and a post credits scene where the character I mentioned before gets to live up to the character as portrayed in the comics. So, yeah, they went the full Green Lantern on this one... which is fine by me because I’m one of the few people who actually loved the Green Lantern movie and I believe the plot and structure of the new Doctor Strange movie shares a lot of DNA with it, actually. Anyway, my problem was that I knew something pretty basic about a certain character who is in the movie way before it happened and so... maybe that wasn’t the wisest move. Then again, there are probably a significantly less number of people who used to read Doctor Strange than most of the other Marvel comics so... it’s not such a big deal, I guess.

Everything else about the movie works really well. The acting, the look and design, the spectacular special effects are all absolutely brilliant... and the dialogue in this one is really great too. There’s definitely a lot of fun and humour about this movie and it’s certainly a sharp relief from the previous MCU movie, Captain America - Civil War (reviewed by me here). Another great thing about it is the music...

Now, I’m gutted that Brian Tyler didn’t get a chance to work on this because I like how he’s slowly been bringing the musical elements of the Marvel cinematic universe into some kind of coherent style (something the company seriously needs) but now they’ve pulled in Michael Giacchino on scoring duties. Now I quite like Giacchino anyway (although I don’t like his opening, Marvel company fanfare as much as Tyler’s) and he turns in a really great score here. Definitely loved the sitars used in the end titles and it all works really well with the movie. Cant wait to get the CD of this one... it’ll be on for quite a few spins, I can tell you.

This movie has all the usual tie ups that the Marvel Cinematic Universe is known for and I’m sure Doctor Strange will be playing a special role in the proceedings in the third of The Avengers films. There’s a special artefact he always had in the comics, apart from the famous red cloak (blue in those original stories... if memory serves me... it didn’t change to red until later) and I’m sure anyone familiar with the artefact I’m talking about from the strips will realise exactly how this factors in with some of the last few years’ Marvel movies... so I won’t say anything more on that subject here because one of the characters, Wong, makes the connection quite implicit by the end of the film. So, basically, if you’re trying to watch all the specific Marvel movies which link into each other at the cinema... definitely don’t miss this one.

And, really, you don’t want to miss Doctor Strange anyway. It’s a terrific, fun movie and, although it injects a certain gravitas into some of the subject matter, it’s a welcome antidote to some of those solemn, darker super hero movies which have been doing the rounds at the cinema lately... juggling a dark, frightening tone with a light, frothy window dressing. Great stuff and easily the best of the superhero movies I’ve seen this year. Watch it while it’s hot!