It’s been almost four years since the Wizarding World was last on the big screen, and if The Secrets of Dumbledore is any indicator it could use a little more time off. The third installment in the Fantastic Beasts franchise is a major improvement over its predecessor (the dismal Crimes of Grindelwald) but it’s still a pale imitation of the Harry Potter series.
Director David Yates returns for the third outing and he brings along with him Potter veteran screenwriter Steve Kloves. (Series author J.K. Rowling gets a “based on a screenplay by” credit.) Kloves is able to fix some of the more egregious errors from the last film and right the ship, but it’s still in very murky waters.
This is a franchise that started out as a light and breezy magical escapism. Before taking a hard left turn into ill-conceived dark wizard World War I allegory territory. While this newest film doesn’t quite return back to the magic of the first film, at least it’s a start. There are still too many characters, too many convoluted plots and too much nonsense.
Eddie Redmayne, trying his best, returns as the lovable and goofy Newt Schmander whose very character feels at odds with the plot. While he has more to do, his actions don’t feel like they influence the overall plot in any meaningful way. Which is something you probably don’t want from your main character. The film has more for Dumbledore (Jude Law) to do but he just feels like he is there too. In fact the entire plot seems like it’s predetermined. There is nothing that these character do that will change the outcome. By the end of the film we are pretty much back where we were when it started.
The best addition to this third entry is Mads Mikkelsen taking over the role of Grindelwald from the miscast Johnny Depp. He grounds the character back down to earth (well as much as you can in a wizarding world) giving him some real pathos and motivation. I would watch a whole film just about him. Well maybe I’d just watch anything with Mads. He and Jude Law have great chemistry it’s just too bad they keep having to put Newt and his Fantastic Beasts in our Dumbledore origins movie.
Which is the biggest problem with these movies, they are a weird mishmash of three competing ideas. There is the whimsical Fantastic Beasts film featuring Newt and his antics, the darkly serious political allegory of Grindelwald running for wizard president or something, and then a barely explored Dumbledore origin story. It’s all set-up and no hits. There are subplots and side characters that are just left hanging. Which is a shame because they would have made for some interesting stories.
That’s not to say Secrets is without fun. There are several moments of genuine fun, including a wonderful sequence where Newt has to deal with dozens of scorpions while leading an escape attempt, and lots and lots of magic. The fights just feel empty and weightless, there are no stakes and the magic doesn’t make much sense. In the Potter films it felt “real” we knew spells and what it took to cast them, here it’s reduced to nothing more than a fancy light show.
David Yates has lost his touch on what made the franchise special in the first place. While his films look great, have top notch effects and blocking, he’s forgotten all about character. He would rather spend his time making more pointless tracking through CGI window shots than actually delve into anything deeper than surface level characters.
Overall, The Secrets of Dumbledore is still an improvement and finds the franchise back on solid footing. There are moments of greatness, and glimpses of potential in this film but it falls flat at times. In the end we are left with another entry in a franchise that fails to justify its own existence no matter how much glitter and magic you through at the screen.
3 out of 5.