Well, it looks fantastic. Stage design, FX and costumes are top notch. It's also better than movie 2. But it's one hour too long.
The story isn't good: it's basically an action movie most of the time. I liked the magical creatures and how Newt studies them and how much he cares for them. Redmayne delivers a solid performance. Unfortunately, despite the trilogy's name, the beasts are rarely seen though. I still don't think it's a good idea to mix the "Newt with beasts" story with the story on Grindelwald. That's like mixing a David Attenborough documentary with Die Hard.
The movie feels strangely detached from the first two movies. Frankly, I don't always understand why everyone is doing what they are doing. Still don't understand the significance of Queenie and her motivation for side-switching. I really liked Queenie and Jacob in the first movie and Queenie was fun but I lost all interest in her persona by now. And where's Tina? Was she cut out off this movie for production reasons? Why is she suddenly not important anymore? Perhaps I have forgotten the content of the first two movies (it has been some time) but wasn't Credence supposed to be some sort of WMD? In this movie, he's barely mentioned and comes across pretty weak. What's the point of telling his story then anyway?
The strength of this franchise has always been the beautiful, imaginative and whimsical world of beasts. The CGI is stunningly crafted. The interaction between actors and imaginary beasts isn’t always seamless, though, and the handling of the Qilin by either actor fell short of believability. Neither seemed to know where it began or ended. This was true of other animals as well, so, what were supposed to be tender moments felt like groping in the dark.
As much as I like Eddie Redmayne, his character felt trapped in his shyness this film with no highs or lows that contributed to the flow of the action. I felt Ezra Millers’ Credence was much better drawn this outing and I felt his struggle. The longing of Jacob for Queenie and her internal struggle were beautifully written and performed.
Overall, I feel this film was so much better than the last film, has many of the strengths of the first film, but the wizarding battles were so much just batting around wands and tearing things up (that eventually were magically restored) that there never felt like there was real peril. Similarly, I felt the plot and mystery was laboured and flat. Movies this grand have so much potential, that to turn out just “good” seems such a let down, but I give this film a 7 (good) out of 10. [Fantasy Adventure]
There's one category of film that I detest, and that's a film with a flimsy script that abuses scenes loaded with digital effects and choreography simply to fill space. And this is a clear example of that.
Long gone is the first instalment of the saga, where we can get to know one of the personalities of the magical world and their experiences. Now it's just a matter of squeezing even more known characters, leaving Newt in a second (or third, even) plane. Do you know the theory of The Big Bang Theory, where they explain that Indiana Jones is dispensable in The Last Crusade? Something very similar happens in this Fantastic Beasts instalment, but I'll avoid commenting on it in order to let you see it for yourselves.
Also negatively influenced by the replacement of Johnny Depp in the role of Grindewald. Mads Mikkelsen has a completely different register, which makes them both different characters. You don't see continuity, you see sloppiness. Not to mention Ezra Miller's role is bland and boring.
Do the digital effects save themselves? Yes, of course they are. If there's money, there are good effects. But they are abused, accompanying the eternal supporting character as comic relief but without a sense of narrative.
Predictable, boring and expendable.
I don't know how this progressed the story and what actually happened, but it was enjoyable. The Credence story seems to have been forgotten as a main story and seemed to be an afterthought that they felt they had to add in somehow. I feel like much of this story was Dumbledoor's sexuality as Gellert seemed a lot less overpowered this movie.
I don't know if it was Depp issues, but this just felt really off. The visuals were fantastic and if not for them and the action this would have been awful for just the storyline as it didn't fit with the other movies unless I ignored the main plots.
Maybe it's over with now, but I'd like to see it turn into a Fantastic Beasts movie and less of the Dumbledoor express. Newt just felt like he was along for the ride and it wasn't his movie.
So many plotholes happened that if I were to list them I'd feel like I'd have been attacked by a Dementor and I'd get fat eating chocolate all day.
Again, the visuals were great and so was Jacob who I'd love to see a TV show with.
A big letdown here because if they wanted to make a Dumbledoor movie they should just do that as I'd be interested.
I don't know what to do with this franchise 'Fantastic Beasts'.
The first movie was so well done, well storytelling, and did an interesting introduction into this prequel world of Harry Potter.
The second part was so lame and confusing, awful storytelling with so much exposition and more exposition to characters that you don't care and you don't even know.
My hopes were high that the third part might get back on track where the fine first part started and that these conflicting partys of magicians in our world might deliver a gripping, entertaining continuation of the story.
The third part has a promissing start: A meeting of Dumbledore and Grindelwald in a restaurant and a cool, gripping, tense dialogue.
The special effects are top, the creatures are adorable and well done. The score by James Newton Howard and cinematography by George Richmond are great.
Mads Mikkelsen makes a fine Gridelwald and Jude Law as Dumbledore is sovereign as ever.
What might have become a deep, tense, emotional and conflict driven movie between both characters gets unfortunatelly more and more into a sleeping pill.
Somehow the middle part of the movie tranforms into a boring, unmotivated heist movie, the inner conflicts of the antagonists are more told than shown and the extremely unsatisfying, dull finale of this movie leads to the question: what was all of this about?
What are the problems of this movie: The whole movie is with nearly 2 1/2 h too long, too much sideplots, overlong scenes and progressions into the story. 30-45 minutes less might have been a benefit.
The conflicts are neglected. There are a lot of adult themes in the movie, but they are not threated like adult themes. Even the finale is wrapped in cotton wool that I think a much more adult approach might have been better.
Besides of all the fine technical and creative setting, the storytelling is flawed and left me highly unsatisfied.
The Fantastic Beasts franchise has returned, with a number of behind-the-scenes issues that have overshadowed the movies themselves. Like its predecessor, The Crimes of Grindelwald, The Secrets of Dumbledore struggles with cohesion and an overabundance of storylines. Eddie Redmayne's character, Newt Scamander, is once again pushed to the background in favor of the poorly-portrayed relationship between Dumbledore (Law) and Grindelwald (Mikkelsen) and a romance between Jacob (Folger) and Queenie (Sudol). This is a shame because, while all the actors give solid performances, Redmayne brings a sense of fun and whimsy that the movie desperately lacks. The Secrets of Dumbledore is weighed down by its own self-importance and lack of magic or soul. Subplots of varying significance compete for attention, when the writers should have focused on Newt and his fantastic beasts or on the story of Dumbledore's complex family issues, his love for Grindelwald, and the connections to the Harry Potter series.
Despite its shortcomings, the movie does have some merits, with visually pleasing shots and some memorable sequences. However, it feels aimless and like it is going through the motions leading up to the final confrontation between Dumbledore and Grindelwald. Overall, while not a complete failure, The Secrets of Dumbledore is a hollow and tonally misjudged addition to a faltering franchise. Even the spell "Reparo" may not be enough to fix it.
La franquicia Fantastic Beasts ha regresado, con una serie de problemas detrás de escena que han eclipsado a las películas. Al igual que su predecesor, Los crímenes de Grindelwald, Los secretos de Dumbledore lucha con la cohesión y la sobreabundancia de argumentos. El personaje de Eddie Redmayne, Newt Scamander, vuelve a pasar a un segundo plano a favor de la relación mal retratada entre Dumbledore (Law) y Grindelwald (Mikkelsen) y un romance entre Jacob (Folger) y Queenie (Sudol). Es una pena porque, si bien todos los actores brindan actuaciones sólidas, Redmayne brinda una sensación de diversión y fantasía que la película carece desesperadamente. The Secrets of Dumbledore está abrumado por su propia importancia y falta de magia o alma. Las tramas secundarias de diversa importancia compiten por la atención, cuando los escritores deberían haberse centrado en Newt y sus bestias fantásticas o en la historia de los complejos problemas familiares de Dumbledore, su amor por Grindelwald y las conexiones con la serie de Harry Potter.
A pesar de sus defectos, la película tiene algunos méritos, con tomas visualmente agradables y algunas secuencias memorables. Sin embargo, se siente sin rumbo y como si estuviera siguiendo los movimientos que conducen a la confrontación final entre Dumbledore y Grindelwald. En general, aunque no es un completo fracaso, Los secretos de Dumbledore es una adición hueca y tonalmente mal juzgada a una franquicia vacilante. Incluso el hechizo "Reparo" puede no ser suficiente para solucionarlo.
I have to confess that I went into watching this movie with quite some negative bias following woke Disney’s dismissal of Johnny Depp. Not that I am such a great fan of Depp but it was just wrong. Woke Disney’s asshats have been trying to get rid of him since the first Pirates movie so they used a bullshit excuse to get rid of him.
Then already in the first couple of scenes woke Disney goes full woke to cater for a very small but loudmouthed minority. Totally unnecessary since the vast majority do not care and a lot of said majority are simply fed up by having woke shit crammed into the movies for no justifiable reason whatsoever.
So, for me, this movie did get off to a poor start indeed.
Unfortunately the rest of the movie had literally nothing in it to remedy this bad start except for a bunch of special effects. I really do not understand what woke Disney thought when the put this franchise killer together.
The first movie, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, in the franchise was a great movie. It was colorful, it was family oriented and it was filled with magic and fantastic beasts. It was fun, it was humorous and it had a bit of adventure in it.
This movie is nothing like that. Why they call it Fantastic Beasts I do not understand. They should call it Boring Political Drama in the Potter Universe instead.
It is dark, grey and, mostly, boring. It is not really a family movie. A lot of the time not much is happening except people walking, standing or sitting and looking gloomy. There are some outbursts of magic action and these are really the only enjoyable scenes in the movie thanks to the special effects.
They even managed to drag the supposedly happy ending epilogue out to become frustratingly boring. Amazing how Disney, who has made so many enjoyable family movies, has transformed into woke Disney spewing out one disaster after another.
Summary: This movie feels about the same as the second film. It has almost the same issues and almost the same strengths. Except for a few. Grindelwald was a weaker villain in this film, he did more overall but the character itself was weaker. Too slow and bundled up again but the ending is the strong point. If they lessened the character list, strengthened specific important plot moments, then it'd be better. Overall good film though. 6/10 First film is still the best but all of these films are better than the HP films. (Sorry HP fans)
Pros:
• I love that Newt's book is being recognized by Professors, it makes his work look more worthwhile even if it was pushed to the side.
• The Dumbledore scene was great between Albus and Credence but it was too short imo
• Crab walk scene. Just fantastic.
• Professor Hicks is quickly becoming one of my favorite professors
• The ending is once again the best part.
Cons:
• This isn't fair to Mads. But I have to con the film for the lack of Johnny Depp. JD was a great Grindelwald and they should've never recasted. Mads is an amazing actor though but the character feels changed. Also, not to fault Mads but he doesn't have the charisma that JD had either.
• It's back to a super slow storyline. There's important bits but it's super slow.
• The gay romance. Amd i'm absolutely NOT saying this just cause Dumbledore is gay or any of those weird complaints. I'm saying it because it makes Dumbledore and Grindelwald's relationship really dumbed down. It was basically just "I followed you because I loved you" and that was essentially it. Nothing deeper than that. They could've kept the romance then dove deeper into why Dumbledore had the same philosophy when they were young then why he changed. The second film had many flashbacks, too many imo, they could've easily made a proper set up here.
• Yusuf and Queenie felt like minor characters in the film. I think it was too many characters to fill in the story.
• Slow and bloated like the second film.
• Once again, lacking Beasts. I get the plot leads to the Grindelwald conflict but the franchise is called Fantastic Beasts and the focus of the first film was on beasts.
Way better than the crimes of grindelwald, but clearly not as good as fantastic beasts and where to find them. I was happy to see that the story actually included some fantastic beasts (which shouldn't really be a relieve to see in a movie with fantastic beasts in the title but well...) and it had beautiful cgi.
The movie had some flaws however. The main one is that nothing really changed from the beginning of the movie vs the end. Grindelwald is still at large and we learn about a bond between Dumbledore and him. But after explaining there is no way to break the bond, the next time it really came up the bond broke... (no change begin vs end and also a huge flaw lmao).
Furthermore it was (at least to me) very clear they wanted to be inclusive and have some diversity, by placing one person of color on each team. At least Lally added something, but Kama had exactly zero impact in the whole movie. He went to Grindelwald to spy but also not and that was it?? Maybe in a next movie (if there will be one) they might do something with it.
Some minor irritations were that Dumbledore was mostly introduced as that, and not Albus, even though his brother (also Dumbledore) was quite present in the movie. In the Harry Potter series it makes sense because he is a teacher/headmaster/elderly and its respectful. But to me it didn't really make sense in the context (except Dumbledore being more known as a name for viewers)
The other irritation was about the death of the qilin. It looked like a killing curse (which would make sense) but then the body is not completely dead since the egg came out (idk fantastic biology but it doesn't really make sense to me) and it had tears quite some time after the curse.
Then, last but not least, the most frustrating part of the movie: the qilin choosing Dumbledore out of all people. The whole point was that it would only choose those with a pure heart or something like that, and that it is really rare it would bow for anyone. We learn some of dumbledores secrets (ha! That's the name of the movie!) so I would say he wouldn't really qualify, at least not yet, but that is not the criteria. It felt really like an easy pleaser for the audience. I would have preferred it if it would bow for Newt (he is so pure :heart:) or Jacob (a great person) if they were to include it. You could argue that Newt cares more about animals than people so thats why he wouldn't qualify (or the people would call him a fraud because he is quite personal with the qilin) and Jacob is a muggle and therefore not worthy, but those would have been better choices than The Great Albus Dumbledore imo.
Anyways even though I had some critiques, I did enjoy the movie greatly. It just wasn't really a good movie with a good plot or anything. Just your basic blockbuster. But if you expect a great time you will enjoy it, because it is a beautiful watch with some funny moments. The art of David Yates.
rating: 7/10
posted: 15th april 2022
Not exactly a Harry Potter fan so, to be quite honest, I've only decided to watch this one (having avoided the first two until just now) because of Mads Mikkelsen, as he is one of my favourite actors. He is great in this, as he is in every movie I've seen of his so far, though, to be frank, I saw a bit of Hannibal Lecter in there sometimes (in some expressions, but, especially, during their fight, the moment when he and Dumbledore touch each other's chest, which gave me so much Hannibal/Will vibes, particularly from the last episode of the show! But I digress...).
Having watched the first two, whether you like Johnny Depp's portrayal of Grindelwald or not (and I, for one, disagree that it was too cartoonish, as I've read somewhere. I think it fitted very well with the HP world and the general feeling of these movies), they were building the audience for a future confrontation with Dumbledore or, at least, for more on-screen interaction, exploring their story. I felt disappointed that I couldn't get to see how that version of Grindelwald played out with Dumbledore (loved Jude Law as him, btw)...On the other hand, also felt like I could have easily loved seeing Mads Mikkelsen as Grindelwald from the start. This cut on the continuity just felt unfair to the audience (or me, at least) and both actors, because it's like none of them got to show their true potential as the character. This just left me emotionally confused!
I agree with some comments here, about some plot holes, especially regarding to characters. What happened to Nagini? Why is Tina only appearing in the end (she's busy with her new job, I get it, but still...)? Who is that new woman in Grindelwald's team and were did she came from? . Speaking of characters, I thought I would be bored with Newt, but I was wrong. He's actually a very interesting and fun character to watch - that line from Leta, in the previous movie, really stuck with me and I think describes him the best "You never met a monster you couldn't love". (Loved the scene with the crabs, by the way! Got me some Indiana Jones feels. :smile:) . Also liked the political twist on this one (reminded me of The Hunger Games, for some reason).
I guess not being well versed in the HP World might have helped me out in liking all 3 movies. This didn't feel completely satisfying as a possible ending (Queenie's return from the Dark Side and marrying Jacob was a plus, but Grindelwald and Credence's fate is still unclear, so...), but it was a good fantasy movie for me. Less so than the first two, but still entertaining.
Review by JordyVIP 8BlockedParent2022-04-17T07:43:04Z— updated 2022-05-30T20:22:00Z
Honestly this is about as good as it could get, given the current situation this franchise finds itself in.
It’s less messy than the last one and they smartly sidelined/ditched some of the more boring characters (like, where’s Nagini?), and in some ways it works in its favour. For example, I always found Tina a pretty annoying character and she’s barely in this one, while the new addition played by Jessica Williams is actually quite fun.
The first 30 minutes are nothing but exposition dumps recapping the previous films.
It’s inelegant and shows a lack of faith in the audience, but it’s also a necessary evil given what a mess Crimes of Grindelwald was.
The story is fine, it’s still a little incoherent (the beasts and Grindelwald/Dumbledore stuff doesn’t really gel together), and you can tell it’s written by a novelist, but it’s also more fun and imaginative than some of the previous installments, as well as most franchise films in general.
Some of the character arcs are once again very confusing though.
The acting is solid for the most part (Dan Fogler steals the movie again, Ezra Miller sucks again) and the new additions are all good, if not great.
I always liked the directing in these movies, and while the cinematography is still good, this one in particular has a lot of that fake Hollywood sheen that’s part of the reason why the majority of blockbusters suck now.
So, not awful, but it’s also far from memorable or something I’d recommend.
Watch it on streaming, they’re more than likely going to cancel this franchise anyway.
4.5/10