What’s It About
Professor Albus Dumbledore knows the powerful, dark wizard Gellert Grindelwald is moving to seize control of the wizarding world. Unable to stop him alone, he entrusts magizoologist Newt Scamander to lead an intrepid team of wizards and witches. They soon encounter an array of old and new beasts as they clash with Grindelwald’s growing legion of followers.
MOVIESinMO REVIEW
The magic is gone. It seems like, with every film, they become wordier and wordier. I don’t mind the dialog, but that’s all it’s about. The first Fantastic Beasts introduced a new character and outlined a very intricate world before Harry Potter. It wasn’t a great film, but it managed to keep most people’s interests. The second movie wasn’t much better, but it still had enough new stuff mixed with magical elements to warrant a third installment. So here we are, Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore. The opening was promising, but after every scene, there was a long-drawn-out explanation mixed with exposition. To make matters worse, nothing happened while these cinematic sleeping pills were in effect. As the movie progressed, so did the dialog of unnecessaries. The magic battles were tedious, and the outcomes were predictable. The only thing “new” was the actual secret of Dumbledore. If they had led with that and removed about half of the meaningless dialog, Fantastic Beasts 3 could have been the best one in the series. As is, this installment is just as “exciting” as the other two films, with each trying to add so much new information that they can’t portray an exciting story. It’s almost like watching an origin film each time. Some aspects carry over from previous films, but they are even re-explained. Like Newt’s ability/obsession to befriend magical creatures or Grindelwald’s power-hungry mentality. What was the point of the other two movies if they were just going to repeat what we should have already known? Dumb methods like that make me wonder if they had a solid script ready or are the producers simply wanting to capitalize on the current popularity. Hoping fans will see it just because a part of the wizarding world is something I would expect from a classic Hollywood film, not so much from a British-led cast and producers.
OUR RATING – A NOT SO FANTASTIC 6
MEDIA
- Genre – Fantasy
- Street date
- Digital – May 30th, 2022
- DVD/Blu-Ray/4K – June 28th, 2022
- Video – 1080p
- Screen size – 2.39:1
- Sound – English: Dolby Atmos, Canadian French, Latin Spanish, English ADS, Italian, German
- Subtitles – English SDH, Spanish
Extras
- The Dumbledore Family Tree
- Dumbledore Through the Ages
- Magical or Muggle
- The Magic of Hogwarts
- Even More Fantastic Beasts
- Newt in the Wild
- The German Ministry of Magic
- A Dumbledore Duel
- The Candidates’ Dinner
- Erkstag Jailbreak
- Battle in Bhutan
- The Secrets of Cursed Child
- Deleted Scenes