RECENT WATCHES: Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore (2022)

Watching the “Fantastic Beasts” franchise fall apart has been much more compelling than any of the actual movies. It’s a series born of pure avarice and ego, of Warner Bros demanding a way to continue the highly profitable “Harry Potter” brand and of J.K. Rowling believing her own hype as a supposedly masterful world-builder and storyteller. The first film reeked of corporate I.P. brand desperation but the massive “Harry Potter” fandom showed up and made it a hit. I kind of liked that first one but was skeptical that Rowling and W.B.'s plan for a pentalogy were sustainable. By the time part two came out, the wheels were already coming off. The A-list actor cast as the main villain had become controversial and let's leave it at that. Rowling had revealed herself as a virulent transphobe and has shown a complete inability to shut the fuck up about that since then. The internet was starting to turn on the "Potter" books it loved so much, with many fans increasingly apologizing for their devotion to this fictional universe. And it didn't help that the second "Fantastic Beasts" movie, which doubled-down on backstory and a deeply uncinematic story structure, was fucking terrible. 

A sensible studio would have put a bullet in the beast(s) right then and there. Yet W.B. is too invested in the Wizarding World brand to call it quits. Despite bad reviews and increasingly radioactive buzz, "Crimes of Grindlewald" made just enough money to justify continuing the prequel series. And thus "Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore," a movie nobody was demanding, pushed into production. Even in our ever polarized times, it's rare that a movie this big is greeted by so many heartfelt pleas to not see it. (I, for one, bought a ticket for "The Lost City" and snuck into this, for whatever that's worth.) "The Secrets of Dumbledore" opened to yet more controversy, as another one of its stars just can't stop attacking people, and the lowest box office of any of the "Potter" adjacent films. Which brings me to the actual quality of "Fantastic Beasts 3," a movie absolutely begging people to hate it. 

I hated "The Crimes of Grindlewald" so much that my brain has blacked out most of what happened in it. This installment seems to anticipate this and dismisses many of the lingering plot points. The important parts are: Muggle-hating wizard Grindlewald hides out with his followers and continues his plans to orchestrate a full-on wizard war against the normies. Dumbledore — who can’t attack Grindlewald directly, as the two made a special blood pact as teenage lovers — assembles a special team to save the day. This includes magic zoologist Newt Scamander, his brother and his muggle sidekick Jacob, and some other people who aren't as important. They attempt to foil Grindlewald's scheme to clear his name and get himself elected wizard prime minister. Meanwhile, Credence Barebone is still lurking about,  struggling with his anger, his powers, and his recently revealed status as a Dumbledore family member.

Part of why the "Harry Potter" series worked is because each installment could stand alone. The structure of each book/movie depicting a different year at Hogwarts allowed for a certain episodic feel, that kept shit from getting too bogged down. Rowling seems to be approaching the "Fantastic Beasts" saga as one long novel. We're only three movies deep and the narrative is already burdened by its own lore. "Fantastic Beasts 3" relies on exposition-laden conversations to put plot points to bed. The titular secrets of Dumbledore play out via terse conversations in dark rooms, as if David Yates and his team forgot film is a visual medium. The film's overwhelming focus on family secrets, tragic backstories, personal betrayals, and forgiving trespasses causes this wizarding world epic to more closely resemble a small-screen soap opera.

The entirety of "The Secrets of Dumbledore" is weighed down by the feeling that nobody wanted to make this movie. The pace is glacial, the story laboriously moving from one uninspired set-piece to the next. Dialogue-heavy exchanges set up sequences, which then play out with little suspense or excitement. At least two magical duels are depicted as swirly, semi-hallucinated encounters which are often difficult to follow. The climax is by far its most underwhelming scene. An important plot detail is resolved for mysterious reasons. Heroes and villains talk more about stuff that's going to happen eventually. And then it just ends, the movie moving on to its romance-heavy denouncement. "Secrets of Dumbledore" feels like a mandatory stop on a long journey that nobody is especially invested in making. 

As belabored and painfully slow as this movie is, it's an improvement over the second installment. It's not as strangled by sloppy writing, vague character motivations, and obsession with "shocking" plot twists. Mads Mikkelsen can't breathe much malevolent intent into a villain as shallow as Grindlewald but he's still an improvement over Johnny Depp's strung-out vamping. The movie does a better job of incorporating the fantastic beasts into its story of wizarding world politic intrigue and interpersonal relationships. There's a pretty fun sequence involving dancing scorpion monsters, the biggest of which sprays fire. The entire plot hinges around a magical fawn-like creature. A chase scene devoted to safely escorting it to the correct location is one of the film's better orchestrated set pieces. Most of the last movie's ludicrous twists are put to bed and few further ones are introduced. 

Yet all of these adjustments still feel like putting new wheels on a train that's already come off the tracks. Newt is still a hopelessly uninteresting protagonist and Eddie Redmayne's performance is still preoccupied with twitchy whispering and clownish body language. The scenes devoted to Credence, and all the melodrama surrounding his bloodline, feel utterly dour. None of the new characters are interesting at all. A subplot involves an agent going undercover within Grindlewald's inner circle. The film attempts to engineer suspense over the question of where his alliances really lie. But the plotting is so inert, and the characters such a blank, that it's impossible to care. It says a lot about how unenthusiastic everything about this movie is that Grindelwald's big scheme to get his criminal record expunged involves the German wizard president being talked into saying he's innocent.

Unavoidably, J.K. Rowling still sucks at making her wizarding world feel real outside the confines of Hogwarts. Despite the plot ostensibly revolving around the tension between regular humans and magical society, you never see that play out onscreen. Muggles are constantly mentioned but, outside of Dan Folger's Jacob, they don't interact with the wizards any. If Grindlewald's ascension to power was supposed to be some sort of commentary on the dispiriting popularity of fascism in our modern world — or even a parallel to Hitler's actual rise to power around the time this film is set — it's pathetically underdeveloped. (Not to mention such social critique would come off as pretty fucking insincere from a vocal bigot like Rowling.) While the reveal that wizard elections are heavily swayed by the actions of a magical baby deer creature isn't as dumb a bit of "Potter"-verse trivia as wizards just shitting on the floor, it's definitely up there. My friend informs me that wizards casting colorful bolts into the sky is how they actually vote. I took it as the "Potter" equivalent of rednecks firing guns off every time their favorite sports team wins.  

Ultimately, "The Secrets of Dumbledore's" attempts to right the boat after that disastrous last movie come off as awkward. You can easily tell storylines meant to run longer were hastily cut short, due to a total lack of interest. Every sector of this production is clearly exhausted from trying to make a bloated prologue interesting, resulting in a big budget blockbuster that is honestly boring most of the time. The handful of call-backs to the "Harry Potter" characters and settings people actually care about are sad cries for indifferent audiences to pay attention to this cumbersome story. The countless behind-the-scenes controversies makes one eager to say that the "Fantastic Beasts" series is cursed. The truth is far more mundane: This was always a misbegotten attempt to prolong a fictional universe that wrapped up a decade ago. Maybe the tepid box office response this time will finally bring this misguided enterprise to the premature, compromised end it was always destined for. [5/10]