Wednesday, April 13, 2022

Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore - A More Enjoyable Third Installment of Fantastic Beasts Movies from the Awesome Imagination of J.K. Rowling

On the first day of its release, my wife and I decided to see this film at the last minute. After going through various options of theaters and also the time, we finally opted to see it at the cinema nearest to our home at 5.50PM. Well now let's get to it.

Brief Story Line

After what happened in Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald, Albus Dumbledore (Jude Law - Rhythm Section, Road to Perdition etc) sought the help from Newt Scamander (Eddie Redmayne - The Trial of Chicago 7, Les Misérables etc) to fight Grindelwald (Mads Mikkelsen - Chaos WalkingDoctor Strange etc). As per Dumbledore's guidance, Newt enlisted the help from several people including his brother Theseus (Callum Turner - The Last Letter from Your Lover etc), his old muggle friend Jacob Kowalski (Dan Fogler - Good Luck Chuck etc), his assistant Bunty (Victoria Yeates), Professor Eulalie (Jessica Williams - The Incredible Jessica James etc) and Yusuf Kama (William Nadylam).

Meanwhile Grindelwald was now working together with Credence (Ezra Miller - Trainwreck etc) who was adamant to kill Dumbledore. Aside from other wizards, Queenie (Alison Sudol) also became part of their group.

So how would the story conclude? Find them all in this quite entertaining movie.

End of Brief Story Line

Honestly I have forgotten about the previous film's plot line and was worried that we would not be able to understand the story. Lucky for me and my wife, the Fantastic Beasts movies are available on HBO Go. So both of us speed watched those films before we went to the cinema. It was a good thing too, since it really helped us to get up to speed and ultimately enjoy the movie better. Just like in the earlier installments, this one also had a dark feel. But the appearance of Dan Fogler as Jacob always made the movie felt brighter as he seemed to radiate warmth and a pleasant feeling.

What made us like these films had always been the beasts that seemed weird but due to incredible special effects always looked real and lifelike. However, unlike in the first film which focused on introducing us with the wonderful world of the beasts, this time the focus was no longer on them. But there were still plenty of the beasts shown, including those funny ones who had been following Newt from the start. For us, this third movie was more enjoyable as it was no longer required to introduce us with the new caracters. Since we already knew majority of them, the movie was able to focus more on the story which oddly enough did not feel too complicated.

The cast in here were mostly good in portraying the characters. The one that required a bit of getting used to would be Mads Mikkelsen who replaced Johnny Depp as Grindelwald (my wife felt Depp was better suited). We both also agreed that Eddie Redmayne was fantastic as Newt, although I personally missed his usual banter with Tina Goldstein (Katherine Waterston). Jude Law was perfect as younger Dumbledore and we got to see a lot more of him.

The action here (fights among the wizards) were absolutely amazing. It was greatly done and quite a lot, although the finale felt a bit too short. Perhaps they want to save it for the next installment (should this one be successful enough, they would make the 4th and 5th movie as per J. K.Rowling's wish). Once again, this film was directed by David Yates who also directed the first 2 movies which would explain the similar tone and vision. Another thing that I really liked was the musical background that seemed to be well placed (musical score by James Newton Howard who did the score for films like Pretty Woman, Space Jam, The Sixth Sense etc). During the closing credits, there was a nice song titled In Heaven sung by Gregory Porter. Btw it did not have any mid or post end credit scenes.

Overall to us, this was an entertaining movie and we enjoyed it. The film was fun, with plenty of fights between wizards, few nice references from Harry Potter, amazing special effects and some suspenseful scenes too (our favorite was the scene in the prison which was intense but amusing at the same time). So if you like the previous Fantastic Beasts movies, do not miss out on this one. It would be best if you could rewatch them before seeing this one. And despite it's classified for all ages by Indonesian censorship body, I think it's too heavy for the young children.

Mike's movie moments rating: 4 out of 5 stars

No comments:

Post a Comment