In the third installment of the Wizarding World series, Newt Scamander and his friends try to stop Grindelwald from gaining power.
Some of the stress comes from behind-the-scenes drama leading up to the film's April 15 theatrical release. Johnny Depp, who played villain Gellert Grindelwald in the second installment, has been embroiled in allegations of domestic violence by his ex-wife Amber Heard. Ezra Miller, who plays Credence Barebone, is facing problems of his own after appearing to choke a fan outside a club and most recently assaulting people at a bar in Hawaii and allegedly breaking into a random couple's hotel room. Then there's series predecessor Rowling, who has been aggressively asserting her anti-trans views for the past two years.
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Release date: Friday, April 15
Starring: Eddie Redmayne, Jude Law, Mads Mikkelsen, Ezra Miller, Dan Fogler, Alison Sudol, William Nadylam, Callum Turner, Jessica Williams, Victoria Yeates
Directed by: David Yates
Screenplay: J.K. Rowling, Steve Kloves
Rated PG-13, 2 hours 22 minutes
It's hard not to think about these very real issues while watching The Secrets of Dumbledore, which takes its cues from current political struggles. While the film's moral concerns still boiled down to a battle between good and evil, Rowling, who wrote the screenplay with Steve Kloves, uses the upcoming wizarding world election to raise the stakes of that conflict. Being good means fighting to preserve democracy, "doing what's right and not what's easy," as Albus Dumbledore (played by Jude Law) says at one point in the film. To be evil is to do the opposite.
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Dumbledore's Secret begins with a chilling encounter between Dumbledore and Grindelwald (now played by Mads Mikkelsen), the avatars of this moral conflict. They meet in a chilly, almost ostentatious cafe, where seemingly unsuspecting non-magicians buzz around them. Over tea, two heartbroken warring wizards revisit their pasts and atone for their betrayals. Grindelwald's determination to take over the wizarding world and start a war with non-wizards leaves Dumbledore in a difficult situation. The future headmaster of Hogwarts must stop his nemesis and former lover, but a contract made decades ago prevents them from directly fighting each other.
This is where Newt Scamander (Eddie Redmayne), the show's timid magizoologist, comes into play. Dumbledore enlists Newt to help him assemble a team to defeat Grindelwald. The ragtag team is a well-known group, composed entirely of characters from previous episodes: Newt's assistant Bunty (Victoria Yeates), his brother Theseus (Callum Turner), his friend and muggle baker Jacob (Dan Fogler), Leta Lestrange's brother Yusuf Kama (William Nadylam) and magic professor Eulalie "Lally" Hicks (Jessica Williams).
They come up with a plan with several moving parts, their goal is to confuse Grindelwald, who can see into the immediate future. If the group can outwit the sharp wizard, then, Dumbledore hopes, they have a chance to save the world. The plan to confuse requires a skeptical team, led by a reluctant Newt, to trust each other. A similar trust is required from viewers who, after two stretched-out installments, must believe that this third film will instill faith in the shaky franchise.
Compared to the previous two films, Dumbledore feels more like a Harry Potter film than a Fantastic Beasts film. While several magical creatures appear – one is even central to Dumbledore and Grindelwald's plans – they are by no means an anchor. This installment revolves around Dumbledore, a more interesting character than the supposed hero of the series, Newt. This shift focuses the film's narrative, but doesn't do much for those of us trying to figure out the series' purpose
However, Secrets of Dumbledore is not without charm. Director David Yates (who has directed the four Potter films and all of Fantastic Beasts to date) returns with an impressive crew that includes cinematographer George Richmond, production designers Stuart Craig and Neil Lamont, editor Mark Day, costume designer Colleen Atwood and composer James. Newton Howard to recreate the rich, textured wizarding world. Battle scenes – slow-motion and shot from multiple angles – add tension and showcase the technical precision and prowess of the franchise. The magical creatures are carefully crafted and the world in Newt's Case remains dazzling.
As Newt and his friends travel across the wizarding world—a journey that takes them from New York and Berlin to Bhutan—they come to understand Grindelwald's influence and the allure of his vision. (His promise that wizards would be free to live and love under his rule drove Jacob's love, Queenie, played by Alison Sudol, to the dark side in the last film.)
As Grindelwald organizes a campaign to become president of the International Confederation of Wizards, he transforms into a fascist figure whose exclusionary attitudes and hateful rhetoric resonate with and embolden the frustrated masses. But it's hard to buy Rowling and Kloves' script that stays on the surface of that metaphor. A viewer attuned to the narrative's resemblance to real life may have trouble getting past the irony of a writer like Rowling extolling messages of humanity, love and radical acceptance given her recent public comments.
If Secrets of Dumbledore has a reason to exist, perhaps it's a testament to how to deal with disillusionment. It's hard to stay enthralled by the wizarding world when its production is mired in controversy and its creator often takes dangerously short-sighted views. This inevitably affects the perception of the work and reveals, at least to this critic, how obsessed these films are with binaries – good and evil, poor and rich, love and hate, light and dark. But life, like storytelling, is much more complex, and that's a lesson we'd be wise to embrace.
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