Movie Number 16 of 2022.
Movie: Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore
The Cinema: Hoyts Victoria Gardens
Stars: 4 (Rounded up from a solid 3.75)
You have to remember two things when watching the Fantastic Beasts movie franchise:
- Unlike the Harry Potter films, there is no cohesive story line to follow
- This is a figment of somebody else's imagination.
Also, thirdly, the second of the Fantastic Beasts film, The Crimes of Grindlewald, sucked big time.
Thankfully this doesn't suck as badly.
RottenTomatoes.com gives the synopsis as follows:
"Professor Albus Dumbledore (Jude Law) knows the powerful Dark wizard Gellert Grindelwald (Mads Mikkelsen) is moving to seize control of the wizarding world. Unable to stop him alone, he entrusts Magizoologist Newt Scamander (Eddie Redmayne) to lead an intrepid team of wizards, witches and one brave Muggle baker on a dangerous mission, where they encounter old and new beasts and clash with Grindelwald's growing legion of followers. But with the stakes so high, how long can Dumbledore remain on the sidelines?"
Okay, I enjoyed this, but I like being taken away to other worlds, and the special effects are wonderful. I have a bit of a soft spot of Eddie Redmayne as he is quite lovely as the scatterbrained, sympathetic Newt Scamander. There were a heap of new characters in this movie, which was good.
And the thing that worked best for me was Mads Mikkelson as Grindelwald - who is a hundred times better than Johnny Depp ever was in the role. So that worked.
On the not so great side, it's a bit confusing and the plot is a bit hard to follow in places. You've go to be a real Potterhead to get some of the in jokes - a lot of those would go straight over people's heads.
But on the whole, I actually like this. I liked how it mirrors modern times with the rise of the populist. I loved the effects. I enjoyed seeing how Credence (Ezra Miller) from the last films, fitted into things. I loved the scenery of the Scottish Highlands and Bhutan. The costumes are great. The CGI and animatronics are brilliant.
It's not a perfect film by any stretch, but I enjoyed what was put in front of me. My brother and I had a talk about it. I was a bit more forgiving of this, but we both agreed it was much better than the second film in the franchise. We also agreed it was a hell of a lot better than Morbius, which we saw a few weeks ago.
So if you do see this, go in with fairly low expectations and you'll probably come out smiling.
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