Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore
The third instalment in the Fantastic Beasts franchise is a solemn, slow-moving dirge.
Jude lore
They say that the devil has all the best tunes. Well, Gellert Grindelwald is the devil of a part and was due to re-boot Johnny Depp’s career. However, after some legal complications it was deemed that Depp was not a good fit for the ongoing locomotive that is J.K. Rowling’s Wizarding World. Grindelwald was the antagonist of Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald and did untold damage in the wizarding hierarchy. However, having become a fugitive from justice, he now returns as a viable candidate to become leader of the Magical Universe. Like many a Hollywood villain, Gellert Grindelwald desires nothing more than absolute power and is drunk on the dominance he already has. To further his influence, he is willing to destroy millions in his path. It seemed a sly move to replace Johnny Depp with Mads Mikkelsen, the Danish actor who played Le Chiffre in Casino Royale. Here, he gives a similar performance but not enough time to truly register his menace, although he has some of the best lines (“the only victim of anger is ourselves”).
Twenty-one years ago (yes, really) the first Harry Potter film tapped into a childlike awe of all things enchanted. Now, the franchise is an older beast and at times positively arthritic. There is an air of middle-aged flab suffocating the entire enterprise as the film plods from one set piece to the next with noble intent. It has become overtly reverential of its own navel. There are fantastic beasts aplenty – they are the movie’s selling point – and they are rendered with astonishing digital skill. Indeed, the whole thing is a visual miracle, from the snowy avenues of 1930s’ Queens in New York, to the vertiginous peaks of Bhutan, to a welcome return to the magisterial towers of Hogwarts.
The most fantastic beast of all is the qilin (pronounced “chillin’”), a scaly fawn-like creature that has the facility to perceive a human’s true soul and pureness of heart. And so it becomes a crucial pawn in the fight between good and evil, and a new-born qilin is captured by Grindelwald’s acolytes to be adapted for their master’s own nefarious means. The slaughter of its mother is not a pleasant sight and will bring back nightmares for those who found Bambi a cornerstone in their psychological fragility. There are other scenes of intense threat, in particular a sequence involving a giant subterranean scorpion, although it is preceded by an amusing passage in which Newt Scamander (Eddie Redmayne) is able to escape with his life from an army of crab-like creatures by adopting their singular walk. Redmayne’s Scamander becomes more eccentric by the film and his enunciation has improved little from the previous chapter, preventing the viewer from grasping what is happening in what is already a convoluted affair. As the young Dumbledore, Jude Law brings an opportune gravitas, while the rest of a busy cast struggles to find a creditable foothold. It’s an exceedingly sombre, frequently soporific ride, whose overall tone is unlikely to engage its intended audience.
JAMES CAMERON-WILSON
Cast: Eddie Redmayne, Jude Law, Ezra Miller, Dan Fogler, Alison Sudol, William Nadylam, Callum Turner, Jessica Williams, Victoria Yeates, Poppy Corby-Tuech, Fiona Glascott, Katherine Waterston, Mads Mikkelsen, Maria Fernanda Cândido, Richard Coyle, Oliver Masucci, Valerie Pachner, Wilf Scolding, Aleksandr Kuznetsov, Dave Wong.
Dir David Yates, Pro David Heyman, J.K. Rowling, Steve Kloves, Lionel Wigram and Tim Lewis, Screenplay J.K. Rowling and Steve Kloves, Ph George Richmond, Pro Des Stuart Craig and Neil Lamont, Ed Mark Day, Music James Newton Howard, Costumes Colleen Atwood, Sound Glenn Freemantle, Dialect coach Catherine Charlton.
Warner Bros. Pictures/Heyday Films-Warner Bros.
142 mins. UK/USA. 2022. UK Rel: 8 April 2022. US Rel: 15 April 2022. Cert. 12A.
