Continuing its run as Peter Jackson's "The Hobbit," in relation to Peter Jackson's "Lord of the Rings," J.K. Rowling's "Fantastic Beasts" prequel series to the Harry Potter franchise soldiers on, this installment coming in with a relatively smooth landing, even if the flight itself seems to come from Topeka, and isn't terribly full of passengers.
Arriving some four years after the previous installment -- for which we can blame covid-19, and Johnny Depp, respectively -- for the non-devout, it might be tricky to remember all the previous goings-on, so here's a brief rundown: We are in mid-'20s New York, just post WWI, where a kindly young wizard, Newt Scamander (Eddie Redmayne), his suitcase stuffed with a variety of rare and magical creatures, runs afoul of various dark forces, epitomized by Gellert Grindelwald (played at various times here by Colin Farrell and Johnny Depp), a powerful, dark-magic type who envisions a world in which the magically enhanced bring war to the regular, nonmagical muggles, allowing him to eventually rule both worlds. A great many other characters -- witches, wizards, and a baker from Queens -- all factor into the increasingly byzantine plot, as Grindelwald attempts to contact and lure a powerful-but-troubled young wizard named Credence (Ezra Miller) to his side.
It is around this time that Newt meets the estimable Dumbledore (Jude Law), a professor at the prestigious Hogwarts school, who had a previous ... relationship with Grindelwald, and by youthful blood magic, cannot take steps against him. Instead, using Newt as his proxy, he attempts to thwart the powerfully evil wizard before his war can begin, but Grindelwald's message of magical dominion over the muggles proves captivating to several other characters, including Credence, and a mind-reading magical sort named Queenie (Alison Sudol), with whom the aforementioned baker, Jacob (Dan Fogler), has fallen in love.
Fortified, then, with his new recruits, and able to taunt his former flame with the knowledge that their blood oath prevents Dumbledore from acting against him, Grindelwald (now played by Mads Mikkelsen) enjoys his growing reach and power. As the third film begins, he is a wanted criminal, but through various manipulations, manages to skirt all charges from the International Confederation of Wizards, and indeed convinces a high-ranking leader, Anton Vogel (Oliver Masucci), to allow him to run as Supreme Mugwump in a forthcoming election.
GRINDELWALD'S SCHEME
To secure the position, the ever-nefarious Grindelwald dispatches Credence and a band of henchmen to track down a rare, young Qillin, a horse-like creature that can read peoples' souls and determine their true natures. Thus snatched from Newt's hands, Grindelwald wastes no time before butchering the creature to gain its precognition powers, and has it resurrected to more or less do his bidding, including rigging the vote in his favor.
Dumbledore, still unable to strike against his former partner, instead assembles a ramshackle group of wizards, including Newt; Newt's brother Theseus (Callum Turner); Lally Hicks (Jessica Williams, sporting a delightful Rosalind Russell-type voice inflection), a powerful American witch; Yusuf Kama (William Nadylam), a French wizard; and our old baker friend, Jacob, and dispatches them to stop Grindelwald from enacting his scheme.
There are, of course, many, many more events and characters -- Rowling, who wrote the screenplay, along with Steve Kloves, always enjoys the multi-faceted ensemble approach to storytelling -- but suffice it to say, certain things are resolved by the end, and a great many things are not (initially intended as a trilogy, the series has now been expanded to five films, at least as it stands now).
HOW IT LOOKS
Here, if it has not already been made pretty clear to you, I must offer my usual disclaimer that I'm not the intended audience for the film (nor have I been from the beginning of the Harry Potter Era, alas), so the true acolytes can rest assured that the film charges ahead with the story in a way that will probably be satisfying to them. It is competently assembled, although director David Yates leans perhaps a bit too hard on his use of blue filters, which bleed any warmth from the imagery.
It's not pretty to look at, but it is in keeping with the overall tone of "Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore," which remains dark, brooding, and drenched in foreboding. Not for nothing does the majority of the film take place in Germany, with Grindelwald's compound looking particularly fascist in architecture and attitude. Whatever victories earned by our intrepid band of heroes, seem relatively small and pyrrhic compared to what is so obviously coming to the world (utilizing his newfound precog abilities, Grindelwald warns his magical followers about the forthcoming World War, and uses it as a persuasive argument against letting muggles continue to run their world, even as he himself becomes increasingly fascist in his approach).
The darkness doesn't end there. In one particularly gruesome scene, Newt has to rescue his brother, Theseus, from a spiraling German prison, guarded from deep down the pit by a monstrous, huge scorpion-like creature appointed with whippet-like stingers that plunge into the soft bodies of prisoners whose lantern-lights have given out, yanking them down into the darkness and spitting them back up seconds later as oozing hunks of gristle.
RESTS ON REDMAYNE
As with the previous installments, the series rests largely on the beguiling performance of Redmayne, whose portrait of the sweetly shy, somewhat addled Newt gives the film much of its emotional center. Redmayne, whose performances are often rooted in his character's particular physicality, adds an odd mouth twist to Newt's particular tics and twitches of a person uncomfortable in public view. He often situates himself in an odd almost half-curl, as a man standing up quickly on a humid day might react to the unhappy clamminess of his dampened shirt against his skin. He's a suitably odd protagonist, seemingly as vulnerable as any of his beloved animal charges he keeps tucked away in various pockets of his waistcoat, but with a steely resolve that belies his sweet nature.
Too many of the other characters, some by direct design, are derivative of previous Rowling creations -- Grindelwald, who should be among the most interesting antagonists, devolves into yet another power-mad evil conqueror -- but the anxious, sweet-faced Newt continues to make the series worth watching. Clearly, the irascibly lovable Jacob, with his baking pan in tow, is intended as the audience favorite, but without Newt's -- and Redmayne's -- exhortations, the series would be bland indeed.
‘Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore’
85 Cast: Eddie Redmayne, Jude Law, Mads Mikkelsen, Ezra Miller, Dan Fogler, Alison Sudol, William Nadylam, Callum Turner, Jessica Williams, Victoria Yeates
Director: David Yates
Rating: PG-13
Running time: 2 hours 22 minutes
Playing theatrically
Fawkes, the phoenix who serves as Albus Dumbledore’s familiar, approaches Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry in David Yates Potterverse prequel “Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore.