Mildly Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore Review

In the latest installment of the Fantastic Beasts movie series, Professor Dumbledore recruits a rag-tag team to help combat Gellert Grindelwald’s rise to power. Why not fight him directly? Dumbledore cannot directly face Grindelwald himself due to an unbreakable vow the duo made in their youth never to go against one another. Even thinking about breaking this vow leads to potential strangulation. Except, apparently, when Dumbledore is concocting and executing plans to do so.

The team consists of many we known from previous films in the series, such as magizoologist Newt Scamander, American No-Maj Jacob Kowalski, Head Auror (and Newt’s brother) Theseus Scamander, and Newt’s long-time and long-suffering assistant Bunty Broadacre, along with the newer faces of Ilvermorny Charms teacher Eulalie “Lally” Hicks and Senegalese-French wizard Yusuf Kama (who is also the half-brother of the now-deceased Leta Lestrange, Theseus’s fiancé who sacrificed herself to save Theseus and Newt in the last movie). Because this is a Fantastic Beasts movie, a deer-like creature called a qilin plays an important role and must be protected at all costs.

As the third movie in what is intended to be a five-movie series (though the fate of the last two movies has been cast in doubt recently), this was a perfectly adequate addition. It lacked the fun-loving, joyous wonder that the first movie had when introducing us to its fantastic beasts, but it was much clearer and somewhat more coherent than the second movie and included plenty of Easter eggs for Harry Potter fans. We got quidditch! And a trip to Hogwarts! Some funny interactions with the students (though maybe a missed opportunity to meet a character we know as a child).

While I enjoyed this movie much more than the last, I was left with many questions and takeaways (beware, spoilers ahead):

• Early in the movie, Dumbledore explains that it is necessary to confuse Grindelwald to prevent him from figuring out their plan. Confuse, in this case, felt like a catch-all for “some of this movie doesn’t make sense, just go with it” for the audience and a catch-all for “I’m just not going to tell you everything” for the characters. I suppose they did warn us, so we can’t be too upset about it.

• We are assured that Jacob Kowalski is an essential member of this team, though the reasons for this never become clear. Sure, he’s a nice guy with a good heart and stands up for people in need, but it did not seem like anything he did was crucial to the mission. (Crucial to his love-life maybe, but Dumbledore does not seem overly-concerned with that.) I’m similarly unsure what the point of him being given a functionless wand was, but I appreciated his joy for receiving it, it’s the same joy fans surely get when purchasing their own wand.

• Yusuf Kama’s contributions to the story were similarly minimal, if a bit more tragic. It’s unclear how exactly memory altering and removal works in the wizarding world so it may or may not be curable and may or may not have impacted his character. Maybe another movie will tell us.

• Lally, on the other hand, was a delight, particularly in the way she wielded her magic. It’s easy to see why she’s a Charms teacher. She had a level of flare in her spellcasting that the other characters lacked, with one particular spell that was reminiscent of the boneless 2-D aliens in Doctor Who.

• Mads Mikkelsen was a stronger Grindelwald than Johnny Depp. While he still had the flare for the dramatic (that backwards leap off the building by when he was just going to apparate away in one of the rare instances where a character does so), but significantly less cartoonish. He came off less mad and more calculating and menacing.

• For a movie called Secrets of Dumbledore I’m not sure there were any secrets revealed. The big secret, that Credence was a Dumbledore, was revealed last movie. We got a bit more detail about how Credence ended up abandoned, but overall, the movie mostly rehashed everything that we learned in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.

• I spent much of the movie wondering why the wizards and witches rarely apparate and travel largely by portkey (though in one notable moment Grindelwald was traveling by car – do wizards use cars? Isn’t that a muggle mode of transportation?) It may be that apparition could be tracked or that it is difficult to do, but it seemed strange that these particular wizards, who should be quite advanced given everything they are involved in, and who are generally in a rush, rarely used this method of transportation.

• There is also a lack of clarity on the workings of the various magical governments. (I had to look up what the position and the election actually were for after I got home – it turns out to be the Supreme Mugwump position for the International Confederation of Wizards.) How can one ministry kidnap a member of another ministry with no international consequences? What kind of prison was that and what is its purpose? It’s significantly more effort than simply killing someone but doesn’t appear to be meant to extract information. And finally, does the wizarding world know the definition of an election? It is certainly not a magical creature deciding who will lead by identifying the purest of heart (as if any politician is fully pure of heart and as we know, Dumbledore certainly does not fit this criteria).

• Math is another area that witches and wizards seem to struggle with. They start with Newt’s original briefcase and ask for half a dozen duplicates. My math tells me that makes seven cases. Instead, there are five. Wizards don’t really learn math, so the error seems fair enough. Was this plot the inspiration for the seven Harrys? (Or in reality inspired by it.) I guess Voldemort didn’t study Grindelwald’s rise and defeat very carefully or he might have been more prepared for this.

• Queenie’s character and motivation continues to make little sense. Because she can’t marry a muggle, she joined with a wizard who wants to wipe out muggles. That’s a strategy for getting your way. She also enchanted him to elope last movie which should lead to some questions about consent in their relationship.

Final stray thoughts:

• Some unbreakable things are easily broken aren’t they? Though how the unbreakable curse was actually broken is a bit “fill in the blank.”
• Credence looked like a Snape-wannabe and continues to be the least engaging character in the series.
• Minerva McGonagall shouldn’t be born yet, much less old enough to be teaching at Hogwarts at this point in time—the movie takes place in 1932 and she was born in 1935—but I still wish we got more of her.
• Tina’s absence very noticeable, particularly because Newt mooned over a photo of her all movie.
• Why didn’t Dumbledore go to the Jacob and Queenie’s wedding? Why did he stand outside like a bizarre stalker?
• Where was Nagini? Will we find out how she ends up joining Voldemort? Does Voldemort know she was once a person?

ABOUT THE MOVIE

Official Synopsis: Professor Albus Dumbledore (Jude Law) knows the powerful Dark wizard Gellert Grindelwald (Mads Mikkelsen) is moving to seize control of the wizarding world. Unable to stop him alone, he entrusts Magizoologist Newt Scamander (Eddie Redmayne) to lead an intrepid team of wizards, witches and one brave Muggle baker on a dangerous mission, where they encounter old and new beasts and clash with Grindelwald’s growing legion of followers. But with the stakes so high, how long can Dumbledore remain on the sidelines?

Rated: PG-13

Starring: Oscar winner Eddie Redmayne (“The Theory of Everything”), two-time Oscar nominee Jude Law (“Cold Mountain,” “The Talented Mr. Ripley”), Ezra Miller, Dan Fogler, Alison Sudol, William Nadylam, Callum Turner, Jessica Williams, Victoria Yeates, Poppy Corby-Tuech, Fiona Glascott, Katherine Waterston, Maria Fernanda Cândido, Richard Coyle, Oliver Masucci, Valerie Pachner, and Mads Mikkelsen.

Directed By: David Yates

Screenplay by: J.K. Rowling & Steve Kloves (based upon a screenplay by J.K. Rowling)

Produced By: David Heyman, J.K. Rowling, Steve Kloves, Lionel Wigram and Tim Lewis

Executive Producers: Neil Blair, Danny Cohen, Josh Berger, Courtenay Valenti and Michael Sharp

In Theaters Internationally: April 7, 2022

In North American Theaters: April 15, 2022

Runtime: 2 hrs 23 min

Watch the trailer:

Photo: Eulalie “Lally” Hicks, Theseus Scamander, Albus Dumbledore, Bunty Broadacre, Jacob Kowalski, and Newt Scamander in Fantastic Beasts. Courtesy of Warner Brothers.