Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore review – Might just be the best film of the spinoff franchise yet

The Secrets of Dumbledore is a loaded tagline. In my book, it is just a few degrees away from The Life and Lies of Albus Dumbledore, that infamous work of pulp non-fiction by the redoubtable Rita Skeeter. The latest instalment in the Fantastic Beasts franchise, though, isn’t nearly as scandalous as it may sound.

Even if you’ve followed only the Harry Potter and Fantastic Beasts movies so far (without going near the books), you still probably have an idea of what secrets lie between Albus Dumbledore and the dark wizard Gellert Grindelwald. The new film isn’t as much an exposé, as it is another chapter in the operatic saga of two powerful wizards who, after decades of going in opposite directions, are now on the collision course they were always meant to be on.

As seems to be the norm in these theme park times, in this third film, Dumbledore puts together a ragtag team from characters we’ve met in the previous two films, led by magizoologist Newt Scamander (Eddie Redmayne). Their goal is to help bring down Grindelwald, who is starting to put his grand scheme of anti-Muggle bigotry into action. The plot here has a certain sophistication to it that took me by surprise. The magic and action set-pieces apart, this is a film with political undertones. There literally is an election in play. Grindelwald’s aim is to make a move on the International Confederation of Wizards, the United Nations of the wizarding world. The ICW is similar to their No-Maj real world counterparts in that they are of, at best, questionable competence. (At worst? Let’s not go there.)

A still from Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore | Image from Warner Bros

The path to the ICW passes through the German Ministry of Magic, and so Germany becomes one of the key places the film is based in. It is also ostensibly set in a time period between our two World Wars; so Germany doesn’t seems like an accidental choice of where the problems began. Then again, this is a Fantastic Beasts film. The main magical being of this piece is the Qilin (pronounced ‘chillin’). I thought unicorns were the purest magical non-humans in the wizarding world, but it turns out these Qilin are equally pure, if not more. The Qilin happens to be of geo-magical importance as well, so obtaining it is one of Grindelwald’s side-missions, assigned to the mysterious, troubled Credence (Ezra Miller). The truth behind Credence’s origins have been teased in the first two films, so that track finally gets closure this time round.

It is a pity that between Dumbledore’s secrets, Scamander’s magical creatures and Credence’s trauma, a number of potentially memorable characters are wasted. Chief among them – Professor Lally Hicks (Jessica Williams) who Dumbledore selects to be a part of this team, probably for her spirit as well as skills with defensive charms; and Yusuf Kama (William Nadylam), of the powerful Lestrange bloodline, yearning for vengeance for his sister Leta’s death in the previous film. These characters could have offered so much more, if the film used its 143-minute runtime better. At present, their purpose seems more to tick woke boxes, though with the controversial JK Rowling herself returning as co-screenwriter on this film, I doubt that’s going to do much good.

Mads Mikkelsen in a still from the film

There are some fun Harry Potter throwbacks, though. The German version of Aragog, Hagrid’s favourite Acromantula (read: giant talking spider) is a gigantic crustacean that seems to have as many offspring is his arachnid counterpart. Another track involves creating copies of a particular important item, to confuse anyone seeking it. It reminded me of all the Harry Potter Polyjuice clones in The Order of the Phoenix. 

From this entire spinoff franchise, though, perhaps the one factor that somehow enriches everything we know about this entire mythology is Jude Law’s turn as a middle-aged Albus Dumbledore. Everything about this character that we know so far – the wisdom, the charm, the humour, the secrets, the manipulation, the self-awareness, the dense facade – all of it seems to be fully manifested in the way Law slips into this iconic character. I’ve never been enamoured by any of the Harry Potter or Fantastic Beasts films, but a focussed Dumbledore franchise makes so much more sense than this Fantastic Beasts departure.

Even the token Muggle Jacob Kowalski (Dan Fogler) might be fun to follow, like say, the squirrely Scrat in the Ice Age movies – on his own trip outside of the main plot. Fogler is endearing as always, but watching this film really made me wish this had been a Dumbledore-focussed franchise.

It helps that Law’s Dumbledore meets its match in some measure, in Mads Mikkelsen’s Grindelwald. I have nothing against Johnny Depp, who Mikkelsen replaced, but I prefer the latter because the Danish actor is as good as they get. His stone face is both menacing and vulnerable, conveying so much by doing so little. I suspect his turn as Grindelwald is what made me invest far more in this film than either of the two that preceded this. Depp’s Grindelwald feels like a pale fog in my memory now. Grindelwald seems to have some vague divination abilities, which is again one of the threads that is underexplored. But then, this isn’t the end of the road just yet. This latest film isn’t the conclusion to the story by any means, so perhaps there will be something more substantial offered on that front in upcoming films.

The biggest win for The Secrets of Dumbledore is that I finally care enough about this spinoff franchise to wait for the next film. Though they could well stretch it out further beyond that, who can tell how studios think. Even though the end of the Dumbledore – Grindelwald saga is known, this film manages to raise the stakes on how we get there.

Rating: 3/5

Pradeep Menon is a Mumbai-based writer and independent filmmaker.

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