Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore

Starring: Eddie Redmayne, Jude Law, Mads Mikkelsen, Dan Fogler, Ezra Miller, Katherine Waterston, Alison Sudol, Callum Turner, Jessica Williams, Richard Coyle
Directed by: David Yates
Rating: PG-13
Genre: Adventure, Fantasy
2022

Times Seen:
Tim: 1

Summary: Newt Scamander (Eddie Redmayne) and Albus Dumbledore (Jude Law) work together to stop the nefarious plot of Grindelwald (Mads Mikkelsen).

Review:
Tim: This disappointing franchise received the very smallest breath of life in the previous film. The original movie was an absolute mess that tarnished the Harry Potter legacy. The Crimes of Grindelwald had a lot of problems, but it was at least decent. The hope was it was fixing the franchise on a more promising track. Unfortunately, all of those gains were reversed by The Secrets of Dumbledore, a movie that suggests it may be time to let this franchise die, regardless of how many films had been announced. This movie represents a drop in quality, back to the levels of the first film.

There's so many issues with this movie and most of them have to do with the script. This is once again a massively bloated affair- 2 hours and 22 minutes for this nonsense is ridiculous. I think David Yates is a good director and he does his best, but there's just too much here. There's far too many characters and very few worthwhile ones. The plot is far too winding and it feels like a rehash of the previous film. Honestly, the whole thing just felt pointless. It felt like the actors were going through the motions, but there was no real action, no forward progress. I was continually and nearly constantly bored throughout this movie. It's an empty visual spectacle. There's so many things wrong here.

The cast is once again not fully utilized and in many cases, just miscast. I suspect Eddie Redmayne may be an overrated actor in general, but he certainly makes an awful leading man here. Some of this is that Newt Scamander is just a poorly constructed, lifeless character. We've now seen him in the lead for three large movies and I still feel like I barely know the guy. He likes fantastic beasts. He's timid. He's loyal to his friends. I don't care about him in the least. He's all surface. Redmayne doesn't get a pass- the writing might be bad, but his performance is terrible. He has no ability to connect his character to the audience. His acting is some of the worst I've seen in a big movie like this. He doesn't do anything badly, but he does nothing especially well. In some ways, it might be good that the cast is bloated because it reduces the amount of time we spend with Redmayne.

On the other side of the spectrum, Jude Law is once again amazing as Dumbledore. He's infinitely more interesting than Newt, but he's relegated to a small role. This is one of the major flaws of this prequel series- had it been about Albus, instead of Newt, all the movies would have automatically been better. I did love seeing Law reprise this role again- he's just so charismatic and cool in it. The movie needed more Law and less Redmayne. It's hard to even look at Ezra Miller with all the disturbing things going on in his personal life. Wisely, his role is more limited here. I can't even assess it properly because he's so disturbing. Dan Fogler once again gives it his all, bringing authentic warmth and energy to the role. I find his character substantially more interesting and engaging that Scamander, which again, is a problem. Thank goodness for Fogler, though, he makes the movie much better.

I enjoyed the performance of Johnny Depp from the previous film, so it was a bit disruptive to see Mads Mikkelsen step into the role. I'm two minds about this. On the one hand, you couldn't pick a better replacement for Depp than Mikkelsen. He's able to deliver a strong performance and he has that bubbling menace that is so frightening to behold. He's a terrific actor and he steps flawlessly into the role of Grindelwald. That's a big plus for this movie. On the other hand, it does say something about this franchise that they had to replace their big bad literally right after finally introducing him. I know this is somewhat beyond the franchise's control, but in one movie you had to replace your antagonist for personal issues, then another main character has been having a mental health crisis in front of the world and committing crimes. Those might be coincidences, but they're also indicators that it's time to end this.

The rest of the cast is fine. Katherine Waterston shows up for just a moment, which is frustrating, because she was one of the best parts of the original. Callum Turner is decent. Richard Coyle gets more screen time, but doesn't do much with it. I thought Jessica Williams was poorly cast and a bizarre addition- the last thing this franchise needs is more characters. She brings some much needed diversity to the cast, but her performance felt off the entire time. And, her presence just created more bloat.

I will say that the plot here felt slightly easier to follow than the previous movies. It's still unnecessarily complicated and never all that compelling, but even being especially bored, I knew the broad strokes of what was happening. I got lost a few times because of unimportant details thrown in, but generally I followed the story.

The visuals are impressive, although it's nothing we haven't seen before. Yates has so much experience in this world, he brings that all to bear here. The wizard battles are fun to see and the monsters and creatures are enjoyable. The visuals are definitely a plus.

While Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore isn't a terrible movie, it's a deeply flawed one. For the third film in a franchise to be this bad says a lot, especially with how consistently strong the Harry Potter movies were. This franchise just feels more and more like a cash grab, which isn't exactly working either. The first film did $234 million at the domestic box office, the second film only $159 million, and this one petered out at $95 million. The people have spoken and they don't support these bad movies. I sincerely hope the five planned movies don't pan out- let this be the last one.

Rating 1-10
Tim's Rating: 6



If You Enjoyed This Movie, We Recommend: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald, Harry Potter movies