Time always flew in J.K. Rowling’s Wizarding World but it has lately seemed to catch up to the Potter pop cultural sensation. Those long lines outside bookstores are a long time ago now. The books stopped but the movies never did. The “Fantastic Beasts” prequels, now up to three with “The Secrets of Dumbledore,” have soldiered on, even if the fever surrounding Pottermania — at least among less diehard Muggles — has dissipated.
There’s always been a sense of dislocation about the “Fantastic Beasts” movies. The Potter films — boarding school movies with magic thrown in — swirled around life at Hogwarts. But where is the heart of “Fantastic Beasts”? The prequels have a foot in 1920s and ’30s New York, with world war storm clouds all around, but they flitter anxiously between fantasy realms far and wide.
