{"id":53015,"date":"2022-04-18T23:57:28","date_gmt":"2022-04-19T03:57:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/?p=53015"},"modified":"2022-04-18T23:57:32","modified_gmt":"2022-04-19T03:57:32","slug":"fantastic-beasts-the-secrets-of-dumbledore-movie-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/2022\/04\/fantastic-beasts-the-secrets-of-dumbledore-movie-review\/","title":{"rendered":"Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore \u2013 Movie Review"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By Bob Garver<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            Unlike the 8-movie \u201cHarry Potter\u201d series, the \u201cFantastic Beasts\u201d sector of J.K. Rowling\u2019s Wizarding World has never been able to quite get off the ground. Maybe it\u2019s because audiences find it hard to get behind skittish protagonist Newt Scamander (Eddie Redmayne) as a hero. Maybe it\u2019s because of all the bad press surrounding actors Ezra Miller and Johnny Depp (here replaced by Mads Mikkelsen) and even Rowling herself. But I think the real reason is that audiences see \u201cFantastic Beasts\u201d as a transparent cash-grab; Rowling was under pressure to add to the Wizarding World, so she came up with this 1920\u2019s prequel series strictly for the sake of getting in more movies. There will always be viewers that want to see what happens next in the Wizarding World, but audiences both dedicated and casual can sense a lack of passion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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            The new movie sees evil wizard Gellert Grindelwald (Mikkelsen) try to steal the election to become President of the International Confederation of Wizards so he can wage a war against non-magical Muggles. It\u2019s up to former lover (now officially acknowledged as such) Albus Dumbledore (Jude Law) to stop him. But Albus can\u2019t act against Grindelwald personally, lest he break a magical pact he made when he was younger. He can, however, coach a team led by \u201cmagizoologist\u201d (magic animal expert) Scamander, himself a valuable asset since a key part of Grindelwald\u2019s plan is to exploit a Fantastic Beast called a Qilin that can see into people\u2019s souls and greatly influence the election.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            The team also consists of Newt\u2019s assistant Bunty Broadacre (Victoria Yeates), his Ministry-connected brother Theseus (Callum Turner), questionably loyal French wizard Yusef Kama (William Nadylam), American Charms professor Lally Hicks (Jessica Williams), Albus\u2019s estranged brother Aberforth (Richard Coyle), and No-Maj (don\u2019t call him a \u201cMuggle\u201d) baker Jacob Kowalski (Dan Fogler). Jacob is low-key probably the best character in the series, since he comes into the Wizarding World as a blank slate, yet he doesn\u2019t lack personality like so many other audience-surrogate characters, including, arguably, Harry Potter himself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            Grindelwald has his own team that consists of the powerful-but-manipulable Creedence Barebone (Miller), mind reader and former lover of Jacob\u2019s Queenie Goldstein (Alison Sudol), and\u2026 a bunch of henchmen that don\u2019t matter. Honestly, it\u2019s a wonder I care about as many characters as much as I do, because these movies are overly-ambitious with their casts, and they keep introducing new characters without properly developing major ones like Newt. That said, I liked the new character of Professor Hicks, who nicely fills this movie\u2019s need for a heroic female presence following Queenie\u2019s heel turn in the last movie and sister Tina (Katherine Waterston)\u2019s conspicuous absence from most of this one. People are sure to say that the patch-job of Mads Mikkelson is the shrewdest casting decision in the movie, but I say it’s Jessica Williams.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            The best thing I can say for \u201cFantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore\u201d is that it\u2019s mostly a pleasant movie. The Qilin is adorable and Newt makes allies out of supposedly ugly creatures. Grindelwald spends much of the movie in the public eye, so after some grim early actions he can\u2019t afford to be the violent psycho he was in the last installment. The climax takes place in daylight in a tranquil setting. The finale ends things on an upbeat note. It\u2019s so nice, in fact, that I couldn\u2019t help but wonder if maybe Warner Bros. is planning to scrap the rest of the series and end things here. Nah, evil has to be punished more in future installments. Still, it\u2019s hard to shake the feeling that the magic is long gone from the Wizarding World.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Grade: C<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cFantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore\u201d is rated PG-13 for some fantasy action\/violence. Its running time is 142 minutes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Bob Garver             Unlike the 8-movie \u201cHarry Potter\u201d series, the \u201cFantastic Beasts\u201d sector of J.K. Rowling\u2019s Wizarding World has never been able to quite get off the ground. Maybe… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":53016,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[108],"tags":[1232],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53015"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=53015"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53015\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":53017,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53015\/revisions\/53017"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/53016"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=53015"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=53015"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=53015"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}