Scheduled for April 13, 2022 in French cinemas, Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore has already appeared in certain multiplexes, on the occasion of previews. We have been to one of them, and we give you our opinion.
An explosive context
It took four years to discover Fantastic Beasts: Dumbledore’s Secretsthe third part of the adventures of Newt Scamander (Norbert Scamander, in French) and his fierce fight against Gellert Grindelwald. Four long years during which JK Rowling’s Wizarding World seems to have lost some of its prestige.
Already, when the second part was released in 2018, Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald, many fans had pointed out some inconsistencies. Subsequently, the production and promotion of the feature film were complicated by various controversies : the accusations of transphobia against JK Rowling, the dismissal of Johnny Depp on the sidelines of his trial with Amber Heard, the prison sentence of Kevin Guthrie, or the recent setbacks of Ezra Miller.
Despite this quite complicated context for the license, as big fans of the world of Harry Potter, we were quite curious to discover this third part of the Fantastic Beasts. Especially since the first reviews released recently promised a better film than the two previous ones.
The best of the three films…
And the least we can say is that despite obvious flaws (we will discuss them later in our review), Dumbledore’s Secrets is indeed the best of the three films Fantastic Beasts. And this for a clear reason: it is the clearest film with its own stakes. While The Crimes of Grindelwald was lost in a thousand and one convolutions sometimes not always useful (each character being in search of another to finally find themselves all in the same place during the climax), in this third part, the whole is focused on the same objective: the fight against Gellert Grindelwald. The result is a much clearer script, which we owe in part to the collaboration between JK Rowling and Steve Kloves, the latter having worked on the script for seven of the eight films in the saga. Harry Potter.
Dumbledore’s Secrets is also the feature film the most thrilling of the cycle Fantastic Beasts, despite some pacing issues. This is mainly due to better management of action scenes – some duels between mages are among the best in the entire Wizarding World. We think in particular of a confrontation between Albus and Croyance, revealed in the two trailers used to promote the film, or an inevitable duel between Dumbledore and Grindelwald.
Moreover, while the bestiary had a relatively relative importance in the second opus, compared to the first part, Dumbledore’s Secrets bring them to the fore. The niffler Teddy and the bowtrue Pickett are true allies of Newt Scamander; and a Fantastic Beast serves as the film’s MacGuffin, is of central importance in the political life of the Wizarding World, and is central to both sides’ strategy.
If his Eddie Redmayne is also still as comfortable in his role as Newt Scamander, we will highlight the great investment of his British compatriot Jude Law, which makes Dumbledore still as solid. Also note the immense talent of Mads Mikkelsen, who offers a less theatrical and darker interpretation than Johnny Depp in Gellert Grindelwald.
…despite important paradoxes
However, despite these undeniable qualities, Fantastic Beasts: Dumbledore’s Secrets suffers from two important paradoxes. First of all, this third opus is the most overtly political of the three films. However, while the elections for the Supreme Manitou of the International Confederation of Wizards are at the heart of the film, in the end, we know very little about the motivations of the different candidates and on the mode of operation of the Confederation. So the cycle Harry Potter paradoxically finds himself making many more proposals with his political statement than Fantastic Beasts: Dumbledore’s Secrets.
Next, if Newt Scamander is officially still the main character of the film, the saga seems to be slipping away from him more and more. As everyone knows, the saga of Fantastic Beasts will culminate in the final showdown between Albus Dumbledore and Gellert Grindelwald. However, if Newt’s expertise makes it possible to unravel the story in several places, his stakes seem lower than those of the illustrious Hogwarts professor. Not only Newt fights very little, but we will also point out that his love affairs with Tina are almost absent from the Fantastic Beasts 3while Dumbledore’s psyche and love affairs are the true emotional heart of the film.
As with the previous parts, Dumbledore’s Secrets is on a mission to always lift the veil a little more on the world of wizards. After the New York of the 1920s in Fantastic Beasts and Paris in The Crimes of Grindelwald, this third film takes us on a journey from 1930 Germany to China and the Kingdom of Bhutan. However, it seems to us that the author fails in one of her main objectives with this saga. Indeed, it is difficult to find the real differences between the Wizarding World in England and Asia, if not different dress codes. This discovery of the wizarding world therefore remains more temporal than spatial.. However, we recognize that our love for the wizarding world is such that the magic works all the same.
Still inconsistencies…
For this part, it is advisable to have seen the film, because it contains some slight spoilers.
Yes Dumbledore’s Secrets suffers fewer inconsistencies than the second film, Rowling unfortunately falls into her faults: as talented as she is, the author corrects faults in this film to create new ones in stride. First of all, the arrival of muggle Jacob Kowalski inside Hogwarts and the hype around him thus revealing the fact that Dumbledore called upon a muggle in his quest (without giving the least explanation acceptable to the spectator) should pose a serious problem, when one knows that the magic secret is extremely important, even in England. Do we think of appointing Director of Hogwarts, then Supreme Manitou, someone who has endangered the Magical Secret so much?
As for the horcruxes in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, JK Rowling sometimes gives the impression that she doesn’t have a fully constructed plan in advance. This is particularly felt in one of the events of the climax, when the MacGuffin tells us that Dumbledore is pure in heart. JK Rowling then finds herself trapped by the pretext of the film : if it is necessary to have the heart to become the Supreme Manitou of the International Confederation of Wizards, Dumbledore is obliged to correspond to this pre-requisite. Goldthe writer strived in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows to demonstrate to us by A+B that Dumbledore was a much more nuanced character than that. His excessive ambition is one of the elements that led to the death of his sister Ariana.
This clumsiness is quite symptomatic of JK Rowling’s failings, and reveals in hollow the difficulties the writer has in telling a story whose ending we all already know. Indeed, those who have read the seventh volume of Harry Potter know full well that Grindelwald has been defeated by Albus Dumbledore, and that he will find death at the hands of Voldemort, when the latter sets out to find the Elder Wand. The ending has been set on paper for a long time, and Rowling has to recount the events leading up to it over five films.
However, as always, we gladly forgive JK Rowling these few clumsiness and inconsistencies, as the wizarding world remains attractive. Barely a few elements (Hogwarts, the aesthetics, the music, the endearing characters, the customs of the wizards, the bestiary, etc.) make it possible to prolong the nostalgia of the time Harry Potter. Like Bertie Crochue’s surprise dragees, those that taste like vomit or booger don’t prevent us from eating the following ones.
Conclusion
more thrilling than Fantastic Beasts and less confused than The Crimes of Grindelwald, Fantastic Beasts: Dumbledore’s Secrets is undoubtedly the best film of the cycle. The acting of Jude Law and Mads Mikkelsen, respectively in Albus Dumbledore and Gellert Grindelwald, is one of the greatest qualities of this third opus. Moreover, if our deep love for the universe invented by JK Rowling leaves us captive of this world so attractive and whose richness is no longer to be proven, it is nevertheless necessary to recognize obvious defects, in particular problems of writing, and the big paradoxes which make Fantastic Beasts a less solid cycle than Harry Potter.
