Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore

I have to confess that I went into watching this movie with quite some negative bias following woke Disney’s dismissal of Johnny Depp. Not that I am such a great fan of Depp but it was just wrong. Woke Disney’s asshats have been trying to get rid of him since the first Pirates movie so they used a bullshit excuse to get rid of him. Then already in the first couple of scenes woke Disney goes full woke to cater for a very small but loudmouthed minority. Totally unnecessary since the vast majority do not care and a lot of said majority are simply fed up by having woke shit crammed into the movies for no justifiable reason whatsoever. So, for me, this movie did get off to a poor start indeed. Unfortunately the rest of the movie had literally nothing in it to remedy this bad start except for a bunch of special effects. I really do not understand what woke Disney thought when the put this franchise killer together. The first movie, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, in the franchise was a great movie. It was colorful, it was family oriented and it was filled with magic and fantastic beasts. It was fun, it was humorous and it had a bit of adventure in it. This movie is nothing like that. Why they call it Fantastic Beasts I do not understand. They should call it Boring Political Drama in the Potter Universe instead. It is dark, grey and, mostly, boring. It is not really a family movie. A lot of the time not much is happening except people walking, standing or sitting and looking gloomy. There are some outbursts of magic action and these are really the only enjoyable scenes in the movie thanks to the special effects. They even managed to drag the supposedly happy ending epilogue out to become frustratingly boring. Amazing how Disney, who has made so many enjoyable family movies, has transformed into woke Disney spewing out one disaster after another.

FULL SPOILER-FREE REVIEW @ https://www.msbreviews.com/movie-reviews/fantastic-beasts-secrets-dumbledore-spoiler-free-review "Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore is a significant improvement over its predecessors, proving that Steve Kloves really can work miracles - J. K. Rowling still has a lot to learn. By completely shifting the main focus of the franchise to the love relationship between Albus Dumbledore and Gellert Grindelwald, as well as the exploration of the former's imperfections and the tragic, complex past of his family, it gains an emotionally powerful, genuinely fascinating narrative component. Jude Law and Mads Mikkelsen's superb performances broadly contribute to this. Too bad the first half suffers from the constant tweaks to the saga, taking once-important characters through irrelevant side adventures and repairing plot points established in earlier installments, seriously undermining the previous films and negatively affecting the pacing of this one. The boat is no longer sinking, but the damage might be too much to continue sailing..." Rating: B

Meh again. <em>'Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore'</em> isn't any worse than the two films it follows, which is a minor positive at least. I'd actually put it above 1 but just below 2, though I'm splitting hairs really. I just feel all three are simply missing that little something extra, yet I'm not sure exactly what. I also feel the same about the cast as I do for the preceding instalments, with the likes of Eddie Redmayne and Jude Law not doing much for me; though Law is at his best in the role here. I will say, however, that I did mildly enjoy Jessica Williams' performance. The pacing is a tad iffy, if nothing super slow. The ending does feel delayed, I would've personally cut a decent chunk of it to be honest. The dialogue and humour is average, but one scene involving Pickett and Teddy did make me laugh in fairness. All in all, I'm undoubtedly underwhelmed by these spin-offs/prequels to the great <em>'Harry Potter'</em> franchise.