The magizoologist Newt Scamander returns in the latest of the Fantastic Beasts movies, the prequel-saga of the wizarding world in Britain, America and beyond before Harry Potter’s Hogwarts career. JK Rowling co-writes the screenplay with Steve Kloves; Potter veteran David Yates directs with a sure hand; and Eddie Redmayne is looking more eccentric and Dickensian than ever in his role, a Copperfield or even a young Mr Dick with his shock of hair, faintly unfocused gaze, unworldly bowtie and fractionally too-short trousers.
The Secrets of Dumbledore is another very amiable and lovely-looking fantasy adventure with some great production design and visual effects, especially in the New York scenes. But it’s not about “secrets” as much as new IP-franchise narrative components shuffled into the ongoing content and shuffled out again. Yet there is certainly something intriguing about the questions arising from the saga’s approach to the existing Potter timeline.
