The Fantastic Beasts series has always been an odd one. Harry Potter is a massive franchise (breaking news, right?), so of course Warner Bros was going to make a spin-off series. And there were plenty of stories and characters they could have chosen to explore. But going the Newt Scamander and Fantastic Beasts route was a curious choice. As a one-off movie? Sure, totally fine. But when they used 2016’s Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them as the introduction to the Dumbledore-Grindelwald story? It didn’t make sense.
Now, that story – to me – was the clear-cut number one choice for what the prequel spin-off series should have been about. So I was happy to see the end of Where to Find Them lead into that story. But why start with the Newt Scamander angle? He is a character with no business leading this story. So even though that movie was fairly solid and pretty fun, it created an awkward start for the larger story at play.
That left a lot of work for Crimes of Grindelwald to get the story on the right track. And, well, that led to some mixed results – and that might be putting it kindly. But at least we were getting to the meat of the story. But it still left the series in a position where Secrets of Dumbledore still had a lot of heavy lifting to do to continue righting the ship. And the results? It kind of does.
Secrets of Dumbledore finds the titular wizard (Jude Law) continuing his meticulous fight against former friend and lover Gellert Grindelwald (Mads Mikkelsen, replacing Johnny Depp). A blood pact made between the two in their younger years, however, complicates his efforts. They are unable to attack each other directly, so they need to find more creative ways to take each other down. And while how that actually works doesn’t make a lot of sense (Grindelwald, for example, can’t try to kill Dumbledore himself, but can send his minions out to murder him; I don’t see the functional difference, but sure, go off I guess), it at least allows for the side characters to get in on the fun.
On the Dumbledore side, we have Newt Scamander (Eddie Redmayne), his Auror brother Theseus (Callum Turner), Ilvermorny professor Lally Hicks (Jessica Hicks), Newt’s assistant Bunty (Victoria Yeates), Newt’s Muggle best friend Jacob Kowalski (Dan Fogler), and the mysterious French wizard Yusuf (William Nadylam). The team splits up to to carry out Dumbledore’s “nobody can know everything” plan. This was one of the better choices for the story. As I said, Newt Scamander is not a leading character, at least not for this story. Making this more of a team-up benefits everything, and gives supporting characters more of a chance to shine.
Fogler’s Jacob is once again a highlight, responsible for much of the humor and levity throughout the film. Newcomer Lally also breathes brings some much-needed new energy, with a great mix of intellectual prowess and a dash of sass. Suave, confident Theseus is a great contrasting character to his brother Newt, and the two have a fun chemistry that I hope we see develop further over the remaining two movies (assuming they even happen, that is). And Jude Law picks up where he left off in Crimes of Grindelwald, offering an exceptional take on the famous wizard.
As great as those characters are, the Grindelwald side of things is where there is some truly terrible character work. Credence Barebone (Ezra Miller) is barely in it, and that’s all for the better. Credence is a terrible character, and I’m glad he’s getting pushed to the background. But on the flip side, for someone who was such a focus early on to now get pushed aside can be a little jarring from a storytelling perspective. Also on Grindelwald’s squad is Queenie Goldstein, Jacob’s love interest. And she sucks. One of the absolute worst characters. The love story between these two just doesn’t work at all, and the movie comes to a grinding halt whenever these two take center stage. They had something decent going with this story in the first movie, completely bungled it in the second, and somehow made it even worse here in the third.
And then there’s Grindelwald, the Mads man himself. Mads is a certified goat, and whatever your opinions are on Depp being recast, Mikkelsen is an absolute step up from Depp. Mikkelsen is much more believable as the power-hungry Grindelwald. Depp’s portrayal was more of a mad man, while Mikkelsen brings a more grounded approach. And that’s definitely needed, as Grindelwald’s plot involves him becoming a political leader in the wizarding world. If the series is going to have a strong finish, it’s going to have to rely on the strength of Law and Mikkelsen. And if Secrets of Dumbledore is any indication, they’ll both be more than up to that challenge.
But as well as some of these characters work, they all suffer at the hands of a still-unfocused larger story. Queenie and Jacob, Credence and the truth of his lineage, shoehorning in the titular beasts to varying degrees of effectiveness. All parts that don’t quite work, making it harder to focus on the more interesting parts of the story.
Even bringing back Steve Kloves (he penned the screenplays for the original Potter movies, save for Order of the Phoenix) could only help so much. Granted, it’s a definite improvement from where we started, but there’s still some streamlining to be done here.
Part of the issue is we don’t fully understand Grindelwald’s motivation or his larger plan. He hates Muggles, he wants to become a political leader to further his own personal agenda. Okay, great. But why? Does he have a past with Muggles that makes him feel that way? Or is it simply a case of “bad guy is bad because he’s a bad guy”? And that’s totally fine if that’s the case. I have no issue with that. But we as the audience need to know that. Voldemort was a great villain partly because he was obviously evil. Here we’re not so sure. If the plan is make Grindelwald a more nuanced character, great. A well-developed antagonist is great – just look at another Mikkelsen role, Hannibal! But pick a lane and go for it.
But perhaps the biggest gripe is that these movies still don’t know what type of movie they want to be. Political thriller that just happens to be set in a magical world? A magical, fantastic adventure where the foe uses whatever resources he has, political or otherwise, to jockey for power? It should be the latter. Even as the Fantastic Beasts series takes a bit of a darker turn, it still has to be fun. And focusing on the magic and wonder of this wizarding world allows for more fun to be had, even when telling darker and more serious stories.
While Secrets of Dumbledore isn’t a complete success, I am encouraged by some of what’s present here. Strong performances with interesting characters (for the most part), hints of the magic and sense of grandeur that made the original eight movies such a huge success. The pieces are there. If they can cut some of the fluff from the characters who aren’t working and the overall story can tighten up, there’s no reason we can’t finish this series on a high note.
Score: 68/100
