FILM REVIEW: Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore – Crab rave?

The latest installment in the critically contentious Harry Potter prequel series, Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore, drags on like a filler episode of a tolerable TV series. Sure, the performances from Jude Law and Mads Mikkelsen are pretty good and the creature design is interesting but is there anything interesting enough in this film to get truly invested?

In a seriously abridged plot rundown, Grindelwald (Mads Mikkelsen) is still keen on mugglecide, however, this time he’s… trying to use a magical horse to win an election (It’s a film with fantastic beasts in the title, they need to somehow be shoehorned into the plot). Newt Scamander (Eddie Redmayne), Theseus Scamander (Callum Turner) and Lally (Jessica Williams) are tasked with taking Grindewald down, while Jacob Kowalski (Dan Fogler) tries to reunite with the love of his life, Queenie (Alison Sudol), who has fallen on the wrong side of politics. Meanwhile, Albus Dumbledore (Jude Law) and Aberforth Dumbledore (Richard Coyle) deal with some family trauma. It’s a lot to try cram into one film, especially where nothing seems to be going anywhere authentic.

Recently J.K Rowling, when she’s not trying to offend as many people on Twitter as possible, has been proving that she’s a very average at best screenwriter (however, this time with the help of Steve Kloves). Outside of Dumbledore and Grindelwald reflecting on their past romance, there’s not much of anything to sink your teeth into in this film. For a film about an election, the politics of the wizarding world aren’t exactly expanded. While the film is based around the authoritarian appeal of Grindelwald, I could not list one of his beliefs outside of let’s go to war with muggles.

This film jumps around a lot. The golden gate bridge pops up in the background to signify we are back in the US, then we are off to spend a great deal of time in a kind of Nazi Germany, which really isn’t relevant to the plot, they just have an underground prison full of magical animals, some authoritarian imagery and a nice venue for a dinner party. Once the grey European cityscape is exhausted, the film races across the world to a very not fleshed out Bhutan.

At some stages it feels near impossible to separate Rowling’s magical world from her beliefs. In one instance, Dumbledore has a line about fighting bigotry at all cost, which feels really out of place when Rowling spends more time being in the news for transphobia than any philanthropy.

Audiences are expected to believe that a global magical society is perfectly happy to let a baby magical horse/deer/dragon combo choose their leader by doing what is essentially a magical good vibe check. At other points I got very confused at how wizard security systems work and why someone would be locked up in a secret prison before being randomly allowed visitors.The problem with this film isn’t so much that it’s boring and over stuffed, it just generally feels like a random assortment ideas which only exists to stretch out this series to five movies.

The actors really work to bring Rowling and Kloves’ script to life and in certain moments they shine. Mikkelsen is an upgrade from Depp and with Law he is very engaging in fleshing out the subtle dynamics of Grindelwald and Dumbledore’s relationship. It’s refreshing to see their stories bought to life in a form that is not 280 characters or less. Eddie Redmayne connects with CGI creatures in a way many others would struggle to and Sudol and Fogler attempt to negotiate the line between good and evil on which their character’s relationship straddles. Williams’ Lally is one of the only characters who truly get to show off magic during this film, making her a welcome detour from the rest of the goings on,

I truly wish these films had no plot and was just David Attenborough narrating magical animals. The magical creature designs are the definitive highlights of this film. The designs of animals like the Qilin are done really well and I would watch magical deer/horses stumble around for hours. My hands down favourite part of the film was Eddie Redmayne and Callum Turner leading an array of crustaceans in a re-enactment of what I can only presume is the crab rave dance. The Niffler was also undeniably cute and more films need tiny leafy green sidekicks.

As someone who grew up as a Harry Potter fan, I was not left wanting more. David Yates’ grey colour palette world is uninspiring and the story ends a weird ‘where do we go from here’ note. I have no idea where this series is heading and I’m not sure I want to. A big yay for Fantastic Beasts and a big nay for anymore of JK Rowling’s big screen secrets.