Movie Review: Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore (2022)

_{[The source for all images included in this post is to be found here. Except where mentioned otherwise.]}

Thank god, we have Joanne Rowling as our coeval. I don’t know what the family friendly blockbuster space of spells and magic would be like without her, but if there’s something I’m quite certain of, it’s that it is far from being bad, and the contribution her creativity and labor had brought to it shouldn’t be underestimated.
That said though, the latest big screen tale of wizardry, cunningry, varmintry, goodery and evilry somehow left me with the feeling that the whole franchise is now running on a 60 percent capacity when it comes to the potential of being invigorating and thrilling. 60 percent being just a number, the source of which is, in fact, something not quantifiable – my intuition.

_{Callum Turner as Theseus Scamander in Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore.}

Taking my seat at the movie theater unfashionably late, almost missing the whole intro scene, I wasn’t expecting anything mindblowing. In fact, I went to see it simply because that day I had a bit more free time for movies than previously planned, and at that moment Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore looked like the best option to spend that time.

J.K. Rowling’s creations are like a nice vanilla occultism, which I’m watching on the days when I want to connect to my inner child, taking time off from stuff like Brand New Cherry Flavor, Necromentia, Salem series or Hellraiser. So, when looking at a half-bird, half-dragon which puffed up like a blowfish to defeat gravity, my inner child was quite excited. That was something I would have expected from A Fellow of The Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. This is what I like about Fantastic Beasts – every now and then the cgi and physics are going hand in hand. Although that isn’t limited to just this franchise and movie. The scenes with devastation in the city taking place, and then being reversed in the first Fantastic Beasts film; similar scenes in Doctor Strange; the cgi in Inception: there are notable similarities among these films when it comes to movie effects. Nevertheless, Fantastic Beasts, of course, deal with fantasy and adventures more. So yeah, my inner child was thrilled about the puffer-dragonbird.

_{The Wyvern in Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore. Source}

But that’s about it. When the end credits appeared on screen, my inner child’s conclusion was: the fantastic beasts and where one least finds them. I didn’t argue with that conclusion, but something bothered me about the whole affair: what if this time the word ‘beast’ wasn’t referring to any magical creatures? We as an audience just never knew what beasts Dumbledore and Grindelwald may have at times been to each other... Hence “the secrets”?

So, if varmints aren’t that present in the new Fantastic Beasts movie, what has the screenplay been filled with? Before I get to that, let’s make this fair: there are manticores in this movie. Now, if you are ever looking for a material for animated GIF which would portray Elon Musk influencing cryptomarket with tweets to his followers on Twitter (and perhaps even depicting his dream of what should eventually happen after literally buying Twitter?), or Donald Trump posting something “truthful” about “stolen elections”, for instance, on social media, the scene involving manticores and bizarre dance moves could be worth consideration.

We’ve now gotten to the politics. Well, this is what The Secrets of Dumbledore contains a good deal of. We get to see German language soon after the film starts – the first sights of it are at a place, which J.K. Rowling’s inner child seems to favor to a great extent – train station. Following that there are events that take place at the Ministry of Magic in Germany, those being related to upcoming election of the Magus Supreme. It is the year 1932. We hear talks about “pure bloods”, who are entitled to more power than others. The mastermind running the whole agenda of “pure bloods” is, of course, Grindelwald, who prepares for the aforementioned election. Mads Mikkelsen (Hannibal series, Doctor Strange) has replaced Johnny Depp in that role. The replacement has been perfect, in my opinion, as far as suitability for the character is concerned; it doesn’t seem like the role required a lot of effort from Mikkelsen – not too much words, no humor, no fun, just a focus on one single objective – power. And manipulation, of course. Hannibal much?

_{Mads Mikkelsen as Gellert Grindelwald in Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore.}

When you hear someone mentioning Fantastic Beasts, you’d likely think they are talking fantasy for kids. The Secrets of Dumbledore somehow comes across as something not that lighthearted. Politics and adult problems without any simple solutions to them. Someone is doing the wrong thing hoping to achieve happiness in love, someone else is not doing what should be done because of love in the past, and what had been done because of that, which cannot be undone.
Harry Potter generation is taking its kids to watch Fantastic Beasts. Jude Law (playing Albus Dumbledore) was starring in Spielberg’s A.I. Artificial Intelligence, when the first Harry Potter film was released. Most of the FB main cast hadn’t yet started their careers at that time. I guess, as time passes, computer animation and varmints become less and less important. Perhaps that 60 percent capacity statement in the first paragraph wasn't intuition after all, just the expectations of my inner child, who refuses to grow up and doesn't notice how time flies.

Grindelwald's ritual with the Quilin though... Even by the standards of vanilla blockbuster magic that's half-baked at best. Where's the mojo and power?

Peer Ynt