Beastly
The Harry Potter prequel series no one asked for returns for a baffling third entry that not even magical Mads Mikkelsen can truly save.
fantastic beasts: the secrets of dumbledore
Director: David Yates • Writer: Steve Kloves, JK Rowling
Starring: Eddie Redmayne, Jude Law, Ezra Miller, Dan Fogler, Callum Turner, Mads Mikkelsen, Jessica Williams, Alison Sudol, Katherine Waterston
UK/USA • 2hrs 23mins
Opens Hong Kong Apr 21 • IIA
Grade: C+
We’re back, people. I’ll be honest. When that horn started blaring, the Universal logo started spinning around the globe, and the drums rattled the bones and the screen was huge… Yeah. I’ll admit it was nice to be back in a real cinema. That said, this was Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore we’re talking about, but still. An actual movie, made for a movie theatre!
This poor thing. Where do you start with a movie that doesn’t even know who it’s for? If this is a kids’ movie, why is there so much animal murder (the fantastic beasts of the title are constantly put in mortal danger)? If it’s for the adults that the children who read the Harry Potter books have turned into, why is it so juvenile? Maybe it’s for grandma and grandpa, which would go a long way to explaining why Jessica Williams’ magic bureaucrat Lally Hicks talks like she just stepped out of a 1940s gangster flick starring Edward G Robinson (though admittedly this was a high point). And can someone please explain the logic of magic? If everyone’s all magical all the time, why don’t they just magic it up when they need to? Like magic wound healing or turning invisible? This makes no sense.
But what makes less sense is the fancy footwork Warner has been trying to do around this franchise, between dumping Johnny Depp as Grindelwald — who should never have been an option when you started off with Colin Farrell — and replacing him with Mads Mikkelsen, and of course creator JK Rowling’s hobby of talking shit about trans women. Making Dumbledore retroactively gay doesn’t get you off the hook, Joanne. The franchise was planned as five films; Warner is waiting on results of this one to see if it will go forward with #4 and #5. Why are they even trying?
This is what watching JK Rowling’s career go up in flames looks like
So in case you forgot, in Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald, power-mad dark wizard Gellert Grindelwald got busted out of prison, started a cult, stole pudgy American baker Jacob Kowalski’s (Dan Fogler) girlfriend Queenie (Alison Sudol), because they decided she should be an idiot the second time around, then went into a light whirlpool at the conclave (or something) and flew up into the sky. We also learnt that emo wizard Credence Barebone (Ezra Miller, and seriously, these names) was Dumbledore’s long lost brother and that Dumbledore’s great tragic OTL romance was with Grindelwald. The Secrets of Dumbledore picks up with ostensible hero Newt Scamander (Eddie Redmayne, still channelling Stephen Hawking for some reason) looking for Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer to put in his suitcase when Nazi-types start rallying around the exiled Grindelwald and get him onto the ballot for next wizard ruler. So Newt, his brother Theseus (Callum Turner) Dumbledore (Jude Law), Jacob and Lally head off to find Rudolph in order to prevent the dangerous division a Grindelwald administration would bring. Basically.
For a few minutes it looks like The Secrets of Dumbledore could be shaping up into a classic cloak-and-dagger spy thriller when the gang arrives in magical Berlin in all its towering, bannered column glory – on a train no less. Nothing says European spy thriller like a steam train. Appearances by intensely teutonic actor Oliver Masucci (Netflix’s time travel baffler Dark) and Peter Simonischek (Toni Erdmann) just add to the vibe. The film ever so briefly flirts with The Third Man-style half truths and secret dungeons but abandons those deeply exploitable tropes in favour of on-brand shenanigans. Read: Newt’s tree branch pocket thingy gets into antics.
Mads Mikkelsen, serving European villainy since 2006
As such The Secrets of Dumbledore is a mess of conflicting messages. It’s well produced but kind of inert. The strong supporting cast is game, but flail about with nothing to do. It’s all very silly — grown people pointing funny sticks at each other isn’t exactly the stuff of cinematic wonder —yet it doesn’t embrace its silliness to maximum effect. It’s a bleak story, in which one of the main characters is slowly dying and the shadow of the Trump years looms large (see: The Batman), yet it takes intermittent, weak stabs at comedy; no one needs to see Redmayne shimmy, ever. It’s better than its predecessor, but it’s instantly forgettable. Which is disappointing for fans, especially considering director David Yates has four Harry Potter films to his credit, and co-writer Steve Kloves wrote all but one in the earlier series. If anyone could get away tinkering with the format and it’s these two. They’ve opted for safe.
One thing it does have going for it? Mads Mikkelsen’s effortless menace and sinister physicality (okay, I’ll say it: He’s the best Hannibal Lecter. Fight me!) adds some much needed gravitas to the story, for a few fleeting seconds injecting actual stakes into the drama. Mikkelsen is graceful and dignified where Depp was clownish and OTT, and it makes his Grindelwald that much more threatening. He’s dangerous. Alas, he’s in, maybe, half a dozen scenes, and his absence waters down an already reedy narrative. A reedy three-part narrative. DEK
Seriously, can you not just wave those sticks around and get where you need to be?