A Giant Beast to Lower Your Expectations: Fantastic Beasts 3 Review

(Source: CO)

Perhaps Rowling should’ve just stopped after Harry Potter, but some people, including me, want more content regarding the Wizarding World. Fantastic Beasts itself is not a new title in the world of Harry Potter. Published years ago as a companion book for the Harry Potter series, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them is a book that contains information regarding all the magical beasts in the world of Harry Potter. But in 2016, a movie was released with the same name, with the premise set as the prequel of the Harry Potter series. But what could go wrong with a series that tells the backstory of the franchise that so many people love?

While Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them was met with good responses from the critics, its sequel Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald was a long 2 hours of a mess, and the third movie in this prequel series Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore is a milder mess that could be acceptable if you lower your expectations. The third movie now dwells on Dumbledore’s past, including his relationship with Grindelwald, and the fate of Credence, which was revealed as part of the Dumbledore’s. The unsolved questions from the Crimes of Grindelwald are being comforted in this third movie in a questionable way. 

(Source: Credence)

Credence Barebone or Aurelius Dumbledore is actually the son of Aberforth Dumbledore. We never heard of such a thing in the Harry Potter series before; no mention whatsoever of Aberforth’s family or love interest. Not even in the first movie of the Fantastic Beasts series. The true identity of Credence doesn’t feel strong, and this leaves less strong heart attachment to the audiences of the movie. 

(Source: Insider)

The bad writing doesn’t end with Credence. The absence of Tina Goldstein (Katherine Waterston) also feels fishy. Although the movie embraced her absence with the excuse that Tina is now the Head of American Auror, it doesn’t feel right. Newt’s brother, Theseus Scamander is the Head of the Auror Office of Britain, yet he takes part in the war against Grindelwald. Even if Waterston was busy with other acting schedules, the excuse of her having a better job so she couldn’t take part in the war is proof of bad writing. It feels as if the threat of Grindelwald is not serious enough; weighing down the threat that the movie created compared to the Harry Potter series, where many school students took part in a war against the Dark Lord. So much for Grindelwald and his title as the most powerful wizard, huh?

The weird writing is probably the answer to the mess left behind by the Crimes of Grindelwald that introduced so many problems and characters for a 2 hours movie. For example, where is Nagini? A friend of Credence, and was last seen with Dumbledore’s first army in Hogwarts, Nagini is gone completely from the third movie and not even a mention of her name can be heard. Or a character that is portrayed by William Nadylam, Yusuf Kama that feels shallow. He was introduced years ago as the half-brother of Leta Lestrange (Theseus’ fiancee), and after the death of Leta at the hand of Grindelwald, Yusuf joined Dumbledore’s first army. Later he “joined” Grindelwald as a spy for Dumbledore, yet we never see him do his job, only later does he help the army in Bhutan during the final arc of the movie. Lore wise, Yusuf Kama has a strong connection since he is technically part of the Lestrange family, but Nagini has bigger potential in the lore of Fantastic Beasts. It is more interesting to see the history of Voldemort’s snake years ago when the snake was still a human being.

But really, the worst thing about the Secret of Dumbledore is its shift of the main character role from Newt to Dumbledore. The title of the series is Fantastic Beasts with the promise to explore the magical beings in the wizarding world, yet after the first movie, the lore moves slowly but surely into Dumbledore and Grindelwald. Nothing is wrong with Dumbledore and Grindelwald, but it feels like they render Newt into a forced character; he doesn’t belong in this war at all. We never heard a single thing about Newt Scamander and his help during the global wizarding war, what we know about Newt is that he is a zoologist. There are probably so many better wizards than Newt or witches for the war, this is incomparable to Harry Potter, a school student against the Dark Lord, Harry is the child in the prophecy (although Neville fits the description), and don’t forget that some part of the Voldemort lived inside of Harry. 

The Secrets of Dumbledore is not a mere bad movie, but when put face to face against its predecessor, this movie wins easily. It tackles the main problem of the Crimes of Grindelwald and chooses to answer the left questions, rather than giving new mysterious questions to its audiences (although some people say that this might be a move from Warner Bros as a precaution if the movie flops). From this point forward, it is too late to change the direction back to how the first movie was, but Rowling and her team need to embrace these errors and just continue with the catastrophe of Dumbledore and Grindelwald while trying to make Newt relevant to the greatest war in the history of wizards and witches.

5/10

Editor: Hussaina Yasmine