Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore review – Best Left Untold

It can be difficult to distinguish sincere goodwill and a sunk-cost fallacy. Both can sustain a person (or in this case, a global media franchise made up of books, movies, video games, and a stage play) for a long time. When the penny finally drops, though, and the loyalty wears off, the alienation felt can be traumatic and downright infuriating. What could make that sense of alienation worse? Having to sit with it like a stomach cramp for an excruciating two-and-a-half hours.

Whatever one may feel about Harry Potter, the franchise defined a generation, and presented a beautiful, immersive world of witches and wizards. Despite the recent best efforts of author J.K. Rowling to take our “goodwill” behind the school bike shed and shotgun blast it with a death curse, there is a real desire to continue our adventures in this magical universe. Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them presented a real opportunity to do so back in 2016, but with its second sequel, The Secrets of Dumbledore, out now, that opportunity has been completely snuffed out thanks to a lack of focus, bad storytelling, mishandling of characters, and an experience defined by boredom.

Mild-mannered magical creature researcher Newt Scamander (played by Eddie Redmayne) is once again thrust into a political conspiracy as powerful dark wizard Gellert Grindelward (Mads Mikkelsen, who replaces Johnny Depp) seeks to become the leader of the magical world, and kickstart a war against the non-magical world. He’s aided by his abused minion Credence (Ezra Miller) and brainwashed follower Queenie (Alison Sudol).

On the side of good, Albus Dumbledore (Jude Law), though unable to confront Grindelwald directly, hatches a plan to stop him with the help of Scamander, his brother Theseus (Callum Turner), his best friend Jacob Kowalski (Dan Fogler), Hogwarts teacher Professor Lally Hicks (Jessica Williams), and Frenchman Yusuf Kama (William Nadylam). But Dumbledore is playing his cards close to his chest, particularly when it comes to his brother Abeforth, culminating in secrets revealed and an adventure to save the world as we know it.

Let’s begin with a fundamental flaw. One would imagine that a movie franchise titled Fantastic Beasts would tell a story that’s centers on “fantastic beasts.” You’d be wrong, although this bait and switch isn’t a revelation, as it was clear by the second half of 2018 sequel The Crimes of Grindelwald (with that subtitle itself an indication) that magical zoology would take a back seat to an overarching narrative involving wizard supremacists, bloodlines, and global politics.

In The Secrets of Dumbledore, the plot elements that do involve magical creatures – even though a significant improvement over the last movie – still feel like they’ve been awkwardly shoehorned in just to reinforce the Beasts part of the title. This is best exemplified by the fact that Eddie Redmayne feels like a forced lead extraneous to the plot. His character showed promise back in the day, but here he’s flat out wasted. There is even a point where the dialogue tries to pitch Theseus as the team leader. Turner does a perfectly fine job, but is he really our series protagonist now, so far into the game?

What compounds the character problem is the fact one does not feel anything for these people. Dumbledore and Grindelwald’s former relationship feels more like a plot point to prevent them from fighting each other. Meanwhile, Dan Fogler’s Kowalski, who is doing his damndest to inject some comedy (while also still being the most likable person in the franchise), sees his formerly-very-sweet relationship with Queenie shoved to the sideline.

In terms of the acting, Mikkelsen and (very surprisingly) Jessica Williams lead the way. Mikkelsen portrays Grindelwald with great confidence and an aura of malice, while Williams plays an enthusiastic and eloquent witch who stays calm and precise in the midst of danger.

In addition to the fantastic beasts being confined to the periphery of The Secrets of Dumbledore, the same can be said for references to movies past, and the Wizarding World in general. Dumbledore and anything related to Hogwarts is only there for the callbacks, like sitting in the Great Hall for breakfast or seeing a golden snitch zooming around. The visuals are mostly made up of dull colours and The Secrets of Dumbledore is aesthetically not very interesting, sans for a few moments involving the creatures. There is a particular sequence involving a giant pit that is easily a highlight.

What definitely isn’t a highlight is The Secrets of Dumbledore’s “climax.” The final act is drawn out, takes forever, and does not feel satisfying in any way. This is frankly bizarre. Harry Potter veteran director David Yates has long proven to be the ideal person for this franchise, given his ability to condense and streamline a convoluted narrative. One can only guess the failing in this series entry is the result of Rowling’s inability to write a screenplay being fully exposed.

Technically speaking, Fantastic Beasts 3 is a course correction in some important ways. It abandons the confusing mess that served as a plot twist in the previous film (Ezra Miller’s subplot was reworked and improved, though it fails to pay any emotional dividends), and it does actually make the film more about the beasts. But in doing so, it demonstrates the problem that there wasn’t much material there for a movie franchise to begin with. Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them started out life as a pocket-sized Hogwarts textbook, released for charity. At best, the book’s material was worth a single, spin-off project. Maybe a TV series.

Because there’s not much to The Secrets of Dumbledore, and what is present is a long, boring mess. What makes it worse is that it’s difficult to generate any sympathy for the project. A few good performances, and some standout scenes featuring Redmayne and Law, are not enough to pull it back. Instead you’re stuck with a film that, especially for the last of us Potter fans, just leaves you with a sinking feeling.