If you never watched any of the Harry Potter and previous Fantastic Beast sequel, you might found that the Fantastic Beasts: The Secret of Dumbledore is entertaining enough. However, for the Harry Potter and Fantastic Beasts lovers and fans, The Secret of Dumbledore was a total disappointment. Here’s why!
The Secrets of Dumbledore is a bland attempt at a political thriller, one that makes poor creative decisions and fails to capture the (literal) magic of the original series.
The film begins by developing the near relationship between Grindelwald and Albus Dumbledore (Jude Law). Their relationship and Albus’ past are among the most fascinating aspects of the series, revealing their flawed pasts as the movie brings in Aberforth Dumbledore (Richard Coyle) to expand their family’s story. Unfortunately, while it is nice to return to places like Hogwarts, Hogsmeade, and The Three Broomsticks, the movie offers nothing more than brief nostalgia wrapped in a slightly ludicrous story and undeveloped characters.
The first two Fantastic Beasts films proved that Rowling was a better author than screenwriter. This movie brings back Steve Kloves, the writer of most of the Harry Potter movies, as a co-writer. Ideally, this would have been a step in the right direction, but even he cannot make the material work. The original films were filled with interesting characters, while this movie has way too many and no idea what to do with any of them. Dumbledore and Grindelwald have a compelling relationship, but the protagonist, Newt, has his compassion and knowledge of creatures and not a single other compelling quality.
Here are some of the highlight why The Secret of Dumbledore fails the Fantastic Beasts fans:
1. The Expected Potential vs Reality
The second Fantastic Beasts is trying to show us how the huge potential from a boy Credence that soon become the character “Aurelius Dumbledore”.
It can be seen by how Grindelwald was trying all the possible way just to recruit him to join his force. And at the end of the second Fantastic Beasts, Credence has finally joined Grindelwald to fight against Albus Dumbledore. There was also a scene when Grindelwald told his followers that only Credence that can defeat Albus. From here, we’re expecting that Credence is going to be the huge threat with his special ability.
And the result? It only matters a few minutes before Credence was taken down by Albus Dumbledore. The fight was not even intense at all, and in fact, Albus defeated Credence easily. So, why they’re making like Credence was the “special boy” in the first two sequel?
2. The Character Unexplained Absence
Tina Goldstein’s absence from Secrets of Dumbledore is bad enough, but she’s explained away as being too busy in her new job as head of the US Auror’s Office, and does appear at the end.
Nagini, on the other hand, who is presented as a hugely key figure in Crimes of Grindelwald and is basically Credence’s one friend, simply vanishes from existence and does not return for the sequel. Even if it’s done to make Credence more isolated, it would have been nice for a second of thought to go into why she isn’t involved.
3. Why Did Credence Leave Newt Scamander Alive?
In The Secrets of Dumbledore’s opening, Credence and his fellow Grindelwald zealots steal the Qilin calf from Newt and slay the mother in order to set up Grindelwald’s plan to steal the International Confederation of Wizards election.
Having succeeded in the difficult task of overpowering Newt, despite his access to his Swiss Army Bowtruckle and magical plot-armor-wearing Niffler, Credence just leaves him injured and goes back to Grindelwald. Despite being thoroughly evil Dark Wizards, his fellow baddies also depart, without casting a killing curse that would have ruined Dumbledore’s entire plan to stop Grindelwald. There’s obviously incompetence to take into account, but morally, it doesn’t fit with their previous actions at all.
4. How a Strong and Unbreakable Bloodpact Was Ridiculously Broken
The magic that stopped Grindelwald and Dumbledore fighting one another was a smart narrative device for a while, but Secrets of Dumbledore proved the problem with writing in such rigid rules. Because in undoing Fantastic Beasts 2‘s blood pact, Secrets of Dumbledore had to break its own narrative rules entirely.
Dumbledore’s blood oath was supposed to stop him from even thinking about moving against Grindelwald, but apparently planning an entire elaborate heist (or at the very least facilitating the plans by Newt and co) is fine? And the blood oath is unbreakable, but just trying to save someone Grindelwald was trying to kill is enough to break it? Why would such strong, supposedly unbreakable magic have such a ridiculously weak loophole?
Bottom Line
To summarize, a good movie doesn’t always have to be a good graphic and scene. In fact, the plot and storyline matters a lot. The Secret of Dumbledore is one of the example of poor created plot and storyline although it can be so much more than it should be.
