MOVIES
PAGE 22 • GO! MAGAZINE
THURSDAY, APRIL 21, 2022 • THE BULLETIN
Continued from Page 20
We start out in a cafe, where young
Dumbledore (Jude Law) nervously awaits a
companion for tea. That companion turns
out to be the dastardly Grindelwald, now
played by Mads Mikkelsen. The two share a
tense discussion about their past and Grin-
delwald’s plans to commit genocide and
wipe the earth of Muggles (non-magic folk
for those not up on Harry Potter terms).
They also mention the blood oath they took
as young lovers, making it impossible for ei-
ther one to harm or even think of harming
the other.
Yes, we have a canonically gay Dumble-
dore, and while that’s great, the script likes
to tell the audience their history countless
times rather than mention it and then let the
actors, you know, act the rest. But I digress.
Knowing Grindelwald’s trajectory,
Dumbledore, as always, enlists the help of
plucky, eager-to-please students (or in this
case former ones) to help fight his battles for
him. This time he gathers Newt Scaman-
der (Eddie Redmayne), fresh from saving a
newborn horse-like fantastic beast known as
a qilin, which has the magical ability to tell
when someone is pure of heart.
Meanwhile in Queens, New York, Jacob
Kowalski (Dan Fogler) is in his bakery and
depressed, still longing for fiancée Queenie
(Alison Sudol), who joined Grindelwald
on the dark side in the last film. While he’s
moping around getting ready to work one
morning, he meets a witch named Lally
Hicks (Jessica Williams), a charms teacher
from the American version of Hogwarts.
She convinces Jacob to join her and Newt
in trying to save the world again, as part of
Dumbledore’s plan.
The two meet up with Newt, his brother
Theseus Scamander (Callum Turner), his
assistant Bunty (Victoria Yeates), and Yusuf
Kama (William Nadylam) a cousin of Leta
Lestrange (who died in the second movie).
The task is to do some reconnaissance and
make sure Grindelwald is captured or taken
out. But when the team gets to Berlin in
time for the election of the next leader of
the wizarding world, things immediately go
south.
There seem to have been some major
Warner Bros
Jessica Williams and Callum Turner perform in a scene from “Fantastic Beasts.”
Another point of contention is the
overall tone of the film. While it’s dealing
with the threat of genocide, all-out war,
political subterfuge and the like, it’s
undercut by silliness that dilutes the
main core of the action. In its attempt to
recapture the magic that director David
Yates has accomplished in the past,
it comes off tonally like two different
movies trying to be told, with storylines
that don’t necessarily mesh together.
course corrections after the previous film,
including the key plot points and putting
more fantastic beasts into the movie. But it
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all seems very forced, and it’s too little too
late for the franchise.
Mikkelsen does a great job with what
he’s given. He and Law play off each other’s
tension and love as well as they can, given
the text. Because of all the controversy sur-
rounding Rowling, it feels like there were
major steps to make the film more diverse
in its casting and make the love story be-
tween Dumbledore and Grindelwald front
and center. That’s nice, but it feels slightly
disingenuous.
Also, because it is front and center, this
film is more Dumbledore than Newt Sca-
mander, which is odd given that this sup-
posed to be his series.
We also seem to have lost a main charac-
ter from the first two films as Tina (Kath-
erine Waterston) is only mentioned a few
times, alluded to in photographs and shows
up for less than two minutes of total screen
time throughout. Now, Waterston did have a
bout of COVID, so it’s reasonable to assume
that’s the reason why she was mostly cut, but
it feels odd to have one of your main charac-
ters barely in the movie at all.
As for the newcomers, Williams and Na-
dylam, their stories — in fact everyone’s
stories — have little to no character arc
throughout, and Nadylam seems more like
an afterthought than anything else. Wil-
liams, on the other hand, gets a great deal
of screen time, and while Lally seems like a
cool character, we don’t get much beyond
the fact that she’s good at spells and she has
a transatlantic accent (which Williams mud-
dles through).
Again, though better than its predecessor,
the film lacks any real feelings of excitement
More Information
“Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumble-
dore”
142 minutes
Rated PG-13 for some fantasy action/vio-
lence
or cohesive storytelling. Note that this is the
first time in which Steve Kloves was given a
co-credit on Rowling’s script, and it shows
— the dialogue is much improved, but it’s
still riddled with exposition.
Another point of contention is the overall
tone of the film. While it’s dealing with the
threat of genocide, all-out war, political sub-
terfuge and the like, it’s undercut by silliness
that dilutes the main core of the action. In its
attempt to recapture the magic that director
David Yates has accomplished in the past, it
comes off tonally like two different movies
trying to be told, with storylines that don’t
necessarily mesh together.
While Yates, Kloves and their team have
tried their best to course-correct the fran-
chise, which has two more planned fol-
low-ups, it feels like it’s flown too far away
from its core audience and purpose. Each
film just seems like a letdown.
Makenzie Whittle is a freelance movie critic and
photographer and has an MFA in dramatic writing from
the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama. She can
be reached at makenziewhittle.com.