What a depressing descent it’s been for the “Fantastic Beasts” movies, the “Harry Potter” prequel franchise intended to expand the magical world of witches, wizards and muggles spun to life by J.K. Rowling. The first film, “Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them,” was an assertion of gentle humanity and diversity set in an appealingly designed 1920s New York. Flappers, magic and cool animals, what’s not to like? But the third installment, “Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore,” arriving four years after the second film, “Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald,” is a bafflingly bad project that can only be described as “anti-cinema.” It has all the charm and fun of a contractual obligation, and dares to pose the question: what if an entire movie was gray?
Written by J.K. Rowling and frequent “Harry Potter” screenwriter Steve Kloves, directed by David Yates, who helmed the first two ‘Beasties’ and several ‘Potters,’ it’s clear that the powers that be are trying, hard, to regain the magic of “Potter.” “The Secrets of Dumbledore” has been hampered by scandal and COVID-19, and it shows. Embattled actor Johnny Depp, who played big bad Grindelwald, has been replaced by Danish actor Mads Mikkelsen, who is an improvement, and the only actor who seems to be energized in tackling this material. Writer Rowling has also courted controversy online with her regressive views on gender identity, and co-star Ezra Miller has faced some legal setbacks of his own. The entire film screams of “COVID protocols” too, with characters relegated to running around in front of green screen background and inexplicable settings that limit the number of actors in the frame at each time.
None of this excuses how inexplicably bland this film is though. It feels like a bad parody, a shadow of what a film is, not an actual film itself. The color palette is a dreary mud puddle of grays and browns, and there’s no sense of space or geography. It has no weight, no heft, no texture, no color, no sense of magic or wonder in the least. The story itself has no sense of stakes or resonance, and the actors range in affect from lifeless to dutiful to pained. It’s a long two hours and 22 minutes but it flies by simply because there’s no there, there.
