Secrets of Dumbledore

Mads Mikkelsen plays an evil wizard with political talent in the latest “Harry Potter” spinoff movie, which also stars Jude Law and Eddie Redmayne.

The image is a reminder that fiction is not just a history lesson, but a means of escape. Redmayne’s character justifies his existence in the plot by coming into possession of a Qilin (pronounced chillin), a rare, fawn-like creature that holds unusual sway in electoral races — it’s a kind of mammalian dowsing rod that has the power to identify a person’s purity of heart and ability to be a leader. Instead of building the plot around a tedious pursuit peppered with cutesy digital monsters — a misstep in the first two “Fantastic Beasts” films — the returning director David Yates and the screenwriters, J.K. Rowling and Steve Kloves, center “Secrets of Dumbledore” on an election. The series seems to be shifting its spotlight away from its supposed lead and his love interest from the previous movies, Tina (Katherine Waterston), who pretty much is only featured in one scene. The focus is on the tragic entanglements of Albus Dumbledore (Jude Law), who once romanced the hate-inciting Grindelwald and still wears an old blood-oath necklace that strangles him for thinking mean thoughts about his former love. In this third installment in the “Fantastic Beasts” franchise (itself a prequel series to the original “Harry Potter” stories), cuddly critters have mostly been swapped out for darker creatures: Here, scorpionesque freaks guard a prison where activists are tortured (or worse). A chunk of the story is set in 1930s Berlin. The deadly stakes are crystal-ball clear.

Warner Bros removed six seconds of dialogue between the two male characters Dumbledore Jude Law and Grindelwald Mads Mikkelsen.

The titular wizard's sexuality is no big one, having been teased, hinted and implied for some 15 years by Harry Potter creator JK Rowling. The canonical coming out is wrapped up within the opening moments of the 11th instalment of the Wizarding World franchise." The new addition to the Harry Potter universe is the third installment of the Fantastic Beasts movies titled The Secrets of Dumbledore. The movie was surrounded by controversies even before it was released with Ezra Miller involved in a now dropped restraining order against him. Our hope is to release our features worldwide as released by their creators but historically we have faced small edits made in local markets."

[Inhales] OK, right, so when last we left Newt Scamander (Eddie Redmayne), the socially awkward magical zoologist renowned as a scholar of fantastic beasts ...

There is one aspect of The Secrets of Dumbledore worth mentioning, however, that doesn’t require a Ph.D. in Potterology to grok. This is number three out of a possible five-film run, and if the third time isn’t a charm, it’s unlikely to change course. It’s not a coincidence that he’s coded as a fascist, nor is the notion that because he was left unchecked by the powers that be, he’s trying to grab power by any means at his disposal — and will likely keep doing so if he’s allowed to. (Trust us when we say that costume designer Colleen Atwood is a genuine magician in this respect.) But once Grindelwald is nominated, a noticeable strain of Nazi imagery from the next decade begins to creep into the visuals. The fact that he and Jude Law have their own chemistry together — Hannibal and Lenny Belardo fans, start your ‘shipping! — helps sell the notion that once upon a time, these two men loved each other and wanted to change the world, before an ideological parting of ways caused them to be bitter enemies. She’s part of a crew that the zoologist assembles in order to keep a sacred animal safe. You already get a numbing sense of a déjà vu spell being cast over the proceedings. A moviegoer has to be a scholar in the now-convoluted cosmology that powers these Potterverse expansion-pack prequels or abandon all hope of understanding a fraction of what’s happening — and even a lot of die-hard Harryheads may find their hippocampus getting seriously taxed while trying to catch up. Their hero’s-journey narratives were also accessible to outsiders in a way that these Fantastic Beasts spectacles simply aren’t. The new movies are built primarily for those who want for nothing more than endless references, footnotes, in-jokes, Easter eggs, cute callbacks, breadcrumbs and vague shapes of things to come. Who wouldn’t want to play in the Potterverse sandbox for a bit longer? But we served with Harry Potter, we knew Harry Potter, he was a friend of ours. This is where audiences find themselves upon entering The Secrets of Dumbledore, the third Fantastic Beasts entry that both illustrates and further underlines the difference between franchises then and now.

Avada Kedrava, Fantastic Beasts franchise. When the opening title of Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore appears on screen, the first part is initially ...

And where is the ostensible main character of this series as Dumbledore and Grindelwald face off over the future of the wizarding world? Replacing the ousted Johnny Depp (one of several problematic figures associated with this franchise), Mikkelsen brings more serious menace to Grindelwald, and he and Law have some tender interactions. It's a clear, immediate indication of the direction that this Harry Potter prequel series has taken, straying further from the whimsical adventure tone of its inspiration and emphasizing blockbuster bombast and franchise expansion.

Fantastic Beasts: Secrets of Dumbledore sees J.K. Rowling completely lose the plot, drowning her new series in a dull and imagination-free political drama.

Considering the lack of throughline, it’s easy to think this is the way Rowling wrote the film, and the franchise in general. Oh, yeah, and all that stuff with Miller’s character, whose bloodline was such a big deal in the previous film that there was a half-hour scene dedicated to reveals and misdirections? In fact, the film features laudable FX work throughout—the way the performers interact with the CG critters, flying debris and various teleportive poofs of magical dust is particularly seamless and convincing compared to previous entries—from a team handed an unforgiving job. But don’t worry, those opposing Wizard Hitler—Theseus (Callum Turner), Yusuf (William Nadylam), Lally (Jessica Williams), Jacob (Dan Fogler) and Bunty (Victoria Yeates), who range from grating (Lally’s accent) to non-entities (the rest)—are crystal clear in their intention to bewilder us with unrelated scenes. This deer (a CG Bambi that can spot leadership potential a mile away) replaces such riveting plot forces as a cursed woman slowly becoming a full-time snake and a bunch of nonsense surrounding the identity of Ezra Miller’s character. Aside from the deer-thing, the movie doesn’t have much to do with beasts, Fantastic or otherwise—though the personality-free Newt Scamander (Eddie Redmayne) clings to his tenuous position as our lead.

Mark Barlow, UK General Manager for Showcase Cinemas, said: “The wizarding world has provided us with so many iconic characters, moments and performances ...

The latest Wizarding World movie may be an improvement, but it doesn't do much to elevate the 'Fantastic Beasts' franchise.

Combined with the script’s placement of the beasts closer to the center of the narrative action, the creatures get to be more than just set pieces. Grindelwald’s influence is on the rise in the same way Lord Voldemort gained power in Order of the Phoenix. Fantastic Beasts 3 also harkens back to Dumbledore’s Army, with the Hogwarts professor assembling a small team of wizards and humans to face Grindelwald. In The Secrets of Dumbledore, the year is 1932 and it’s again time to pick the next leader of the wizarding world. It’s evident that Kloves treats this film as his own take on Order of the Phoenix. The Secrets of Dumbledore is a way to fill that writerly void and the two installments share a few things in common. While the Harry Potter author took a backseat role in the original run of movies, she penned the first two Fantastic Beasts scripts on her own to little critical acclaim. Whether Fantastic Beasts crumbles into ash or rises like a phoenix depends almost entirely on its third installment, The Secrets of Dumbledore.

The latest installment in the "Fantastic Beasts" series of movie prequels based on characters from the Harry Potter universe – the third of five planned ...

Exactly how the election is rigged – and unrigged – is best left unsaid, but it does involve a sort of sprawling game of three-card monte, conducted by Newt and incorporating suitcases, some empty and some not, over the streets and alleyways of a mountain village in Bhutan. It’s a modest and not especially clever gambit, and the story seems to peter out with a disappointing whimper rather than with a bang. Nor is the fact of their falling out over Dumbledore’s disagreement with Grindelwald’s plan to, as the latter puts it, “burn down” the world of nonmagical Muggles (whom he dismisses as foul-smelling “animals”). The real skeleton in the Dumbledore closet, so to speak, is something quite apart from the character’s sexuality and was alluded to at the end of the last film. This being the wizarding world, the election involves acclamation not by anything so pedestrian as the popular vote, but by the approval of the qilin, which has the magical ability to sense a man or woman of honor and good character. Gifts processed in this system are not tax deductible, but are predominately used to help meet the local financial requirements needed to receive national matching-grant funds. Although subtitled “The Secrets of Dumbledore,” the movie is only nominally about Dumbledore family secrets: not just those involving the great wizard Albus Dumbledore (Jude Law) in the years before he became headmaster of Hogwarts, but those concerning other branches of his family tree.

Warner Bros. is allegedly waiting to see how Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore performs before greenlighting any further sequels.

Director David Yates later defended the decision to extend the series from three to five movies, explaining that Rowling realized there was "a whole lot more" to the story while writing the second. In terms of box office performance, 2016's Where to Find Them was a commercial success, grossing more than $800 million worldwide, even though its opening weekend numbers fell short compared to the rest of the franchise. Mads Mikkelsen was cast to replace Depp in the role of Gellert Grindelwald in Fantastic Beasts 3, but the third installment wasn't without its setbacks.

Directed by David Yates, the cast includes Eddie Redmayne as Newt Scamander, Jude Law as Albus Dumbledore, and Mads Mikkelsen as Gellert Grindelwald. Ezra ...

This would follow the same release pattern as The Batman, which opened in theaters on March 4, and is coming to HBO Max on Monday, April 18. After 45 days in theaters, you will be able to stream Fantastic Beasts 3 on HBO Max. Read on for more details. This year, however, Warner Bros. theatrical movies will have a 45-day theaters-only run before moving to HBO Max.