Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore - Fewer Beasts, More Nazi Metaphor, Less Charm
By Jim Slotek
Rating: C-plus
To say that the Harry Potter prequel series Fantastic Beasts has failed to catch the imagination of movie-going muggles sounds counter-intuitive considering the last instalment, The Crimes of Grindelwald, grossed $600 million-plus worldwide.
But another way to look at it is that it was the lowest-grossing Wizarding World movie to date. Given the current state of the multiplex, and the lukewarm charms of the latest addition, Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore, I predict that record will soon literally fall.
Grindelwald (Mads Mikkelsen)’s quest to steal an election is very bad news for muggles.
Merely on its premise, Fantastic Beasts had drawbacks compared to its predecessor. The Harry Potter series had children as protagonists, firming its place with a youth audience, one which grew up with it as it got darker, post Prisoner of Azkaban.
By comparison, Fantastic Beasts has entirely adult characters. In its favour, it could lean on a menagerie of fantastically cute beasts with cute Pokemon-like names (Billywig, Plimpy, Chizpurfle) and equally cute characters, like the protagonist, Magizoology adventurer Newt Scamander (Eddie Redmayne), the good-hearted muggle Jacob Kowalski (Dan Fogler) and his squeaky witch sweetheart Queenie (Alison Sudol).
But if cute was the selling point of this spin-off series, it’s practically out of stock in Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore, a movie that has traded in its charm (and, for the most part, its fantastic beasts) for an extended Nazi metaphor.
There has always been subtext-readings of Harry Potter as a fight against fascism, with a “superior race” that bounces between coexisting secretly and peaceably with the muggles (us) and, well, not. And then there’s the whole business of indentured “house elves.”
But, set in the ‘30s as it is, with rallies in Berlin around an evil wizarding wannabe dictator looking to steal an election via dark magic, there is little “sub” to this text.
(This is where I note that said tyrant-in-waiting Grindelwald, has changed since his crimes. Johnny Depp, who played him in the previous film, was replaced once he got involved in a libel case over accusations of abuse during his marriage to Amber Heard. Smart move, since the release of Secrets of Dumbledore coincides with yet another trial involving the marriage).
Mads Mikkelsen, who plays him here, arguably makes for a much better demagogue than Depp. With his imperious eyes, he resembles a taller Putin with hair.
The plot, such as it is, involves Scamander, Kowalski and a rag-tag group of wizards trying to protect a Qilin, sort of a big-eyed ruminant with scales, who, for some reason, is given the authority to choose the leader of the wizard world (it would be kind of like a moose choosing the Prime Minister of Canada).
(The Qilin is one of two noteworthy fantastic beasts here, the other being a species of subterranean crabs who can strip your bones of flesh, but also like to dance).
As for Albus Dumbledore’s title secrets, the once-and-future headmaster of Hogwart’s (played here by Jude Law) has one big one, involving his relationship with Grindelwald and the uneasy truce between them. Not to be divulged here.
There’s one thing about popular despotism as portrayed in the movies that seems anachronistic. When people are being misled and their populist dark hero is revealed for what he really is, movie mobs turn on a dime (this vibe goes all the way back to Andy Griffith’s sinister portrayal of a grinning radio host with hateful ambitions in Elia Kazan’s A Face in the Crowd).
In real life, we now know, people double down in the face of contrary evidence. In The Secrets of Dumbledore, I kept waiting for some ardent muggle-hater to yell out, “Fake news! Stop the steal!”
Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore. Directed by David Yates. Written by Steve Kloves and J.K. Rowling. Stars Eddie Redmayne, Jude Law and Mads Mikkelsen. Opens in theatres, Friday, April 15.