Review of Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore (2022) by Geowizard410 — 23 Apr 2022

There's still room for improvement, but overall The Secrets of Dumbledore is a big step back in the right direction for the franchise. The thing I enjoyed most about the film is that the beasts/magical creatures become bigger centerpieces in terms involvement and importance with the plot and moving it forward; something significantly lacking from the last film (Crimes of Grindelwald). The movie, though not perfectly, does a pretty good job at cleaning up the confusions, messes, and ambiguities left for the audience to solve and question from the last film and the trailers; better than the Rise of Skywalker did after The Last Jedi *cough cough*. It was also enjoyable getting to see the widest scope of places in the Wizarding World to date, whether it was the longer scenes in Berlin, Germany and Bhutan to snippets of many other places across the globe. I also enjoyed getting to see greater involvement from characters like Bunty, Eulalie "Lally" Hicks, and Aberforth Dumbledore, who only appeared very briefly in the Crimes of Grindelwald or not at all in the series prior, and the way character arcs were developed and even shined in this film (Jacob was the best of the bunch) was phenomenal. Special effects also were pleasingly excellent.

Now to the big elephant in the room; the actor change of Gellert Grindelwald from Johnny Depp (he's innocent) to Mads Mikkelsen. I do miss Johnny Depp and I believe the way he was let go from the franchise was wrong. That being said, I do think Mads Mikkelsen should've been cast as Grindelwald from the beginning. Though I did like much of Depp's portrayal as Grindelwald, it felt hard to take him as seriously sometimes as a villain when he was in that role; portrayal felt somewhat cartoony. But with Mads, you see the deepest and darkest side of Grindelwald yet; falling deeper into his cold, calculated psychopathy who takes great advantage of the socio-political, tense divide in the Wizarding World. Similar to the era's boiling rise of fascism and nationalism in the muggle world. The one criticism I have for the portrayal of Grindelwald is that though I did find one subtle clue, the film never really explains the significant appearance difference of Grindelwald between Crimes of Grindelwald and here, as Secrets of Dumbledore (1932) only takes place five years after Crimes of Grindelwald (1927). But overall, Mads Mikkelsen hit the mark as Grindelwald and then some.

I liked the callback and easter eggs that reference back to the original Harry Potter series, however it felt like there were a few things done with this and a couple other scenes in the film that seemed to break with traditional rules and canon set forth by the original series, which did feel off. My only other criticism of the film is that some of the attempted humor did fall flat, but that's the most minor part.

There's definitely things the film could've done and the series still could do better. With that being said, I'm glad to see The Secrets of Dumbledore doing the Fantastic Beasts series justice. Elevating Steve Kloves to the role of screenwriter really helped this film exceptionally and he, director David Yates, and the producers of the film did well to take the film, and the series [to its benefit] in a darker direction. I came into this film with reserved expectations and a degree of skepticism, but I think this movie definitely succeeded in pleasantly surprising me and overall saving the Fantastic Beasts series in order to [hopefully] finishing out with its last two planned movies.