Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore
2022
**
Director: David Yates
Cast: Eddie Redmayne, Jude Law, Ezra Miller, Dan Fogler, Alison Sudol, Callum Turner, Jessica Williams, Katherine Waterston, Mads Mikkelsen
The third and hopefully final episode in the Fantastic Beasts series offers marginal improvement on the dreadful second film, The Crimes of Grindelwald. At least this time an actual fantastic beast (Qilin) plays a key role as Gellert Grindelwald (now played by Mads Mikkelsen) seeks political power in the wizarding world. His former lover Albus Dumbledore asks Newt Scamander to lead a team that aims to confound the dark wizard. J.K. Rowling, who wrote the first two episodes alone, now shares the writing credit with Steve Kloves, who adapted all but one of the seven Harry Potter books, but the end result is another overlong movie comprised of inconsequential scenes. Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them introduced a cast of characters, who have struggled to find a meaningful part to play in the subsequent two releases. Newt leads the team, but what does he actually do? Jacob's contribution is to wave a fake wand in one scene. Credence walks around brooding and wondering who his daddy is. Queenie gives uncomfortable looks in Grindelwald's gang, and that's it. Her sister Tina, Newt's love interest, is not involved at all because she is busy. After three releases, it is still unclear to me what the overall story of this franchise is.
