I hated hated hated Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore and so did you and everyone you know

I wrote this review like a year and a half ago because I saw this movie in the theaters and never remembered to post it. I have not rewatched the film since. You should not see it either.

GOD where to start with this shit? Ok, remember when Star Wars: The Force Awakens came out, and we were all like ‘huh. Ok, not bad. What else ya got?’ and then we got The Last Jedi and everyone was like ‘uh… what?’ and then JJ Abrams had to swoop in and wrap things up in a neat bow while also making things make sense and be epic and be Star Wars and apologize for TLJ but also not be The Return of the Jedi but it ended up being baaaaasically just RoTJ? Ok well this is like that.

Fantastic GAYs

Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore is a well-intentioned but ultimately meaningless attempt at righting the ship after the fiasco that was its precursor. No one really knows where or what or why or how or why or even why these films were made. But most of all, we never knew what fantastic beasts have to do with Grindelwald, and what secrets Dumbledore has other than being gay, which is not a secret anymore.

JK Rowling is so weird. British people are so fucking weird. On one hand, she’s written an amazing, unique and fantastic world in Harry Potter, and ignoring the deus ex machina of the Deathly Hallows, it’s a really good series. There’s a lot of really rich lore before this saga, and while the Grindelwald stuff isn’t the least interesting, it’s also not the most interesting story to be told. It also has literally nothing to do with magic creatures, so it really confuses me why Warner Brothers is trying to shove this crap down our gullet. 

Also, I have an issue with Dumbledore being gay. Not because I have issues with anyone being gay, but that Dumbledore is gay. Can he be gay? Yeah, totally. Was he hinted at being gay? No. The LA Times has a ridiculous article pointing out clues that he was gay in the books- books, may I add, I have read four times over. Clue number one is: ‘His pet. “Fawkes, the many-colored phoenix, is ‘flaming.’” Ok. So let’s say this is just satire. But still, what the fuck? Then there’s the whole, ‘Rowling is against trans people’ debacle. So is she pro-LGBT? Did she just make Dumbledore gay off-screen to cash in on my gay money? Why is my money gay? Does WB still want it if it’s gay? My gay money is likely still worth the same as Normal money, so I’m sure they do. It’s just that I, being gay, am not worth the same as if I was Normal. Amirite, Rowling? FUCK.

Magical Clusterfuck

So anyways, now you’ve got a franchise with 1 villain played by literally 4 different actors, and a third movie that is not connected at all to the first movie (which has a plot based on a fucking lie), and a second movie that’s even more disconnected than the first movie, and many in-canon continuity errors. What I’m trying to say is that if you feel like Eddie Redmayne looks dead on the inside, it’s because he fucking is. Truth be told, I don’t think anyone was happy making this monstrosity of a film. Everyone involved in production is likely haunted by the fact that this movie only exists for m$o$n$e$y. 

In fairness, like with The Rise of Skywalker, you gotta tie things together and put them to bed. Like suffocating a franchise under a pillow after it’s defiled all that came before it. EXCEPT IT FUCKING DOESN’T. At the end of this movie, Grindelwald literally just runs away when the kids unmask his scheme in front of the police, and he’s like ‘grr you naughty kids’. We’re literally going to have to suffer through another movie with this shit because Grindelwald gets away.

The many, many idiotic and unlikeable characters from all the other movies come together for a lil bit of screen time in this movie for the sake of ‘completeness’. Some of them are told to fuck off because David Yates couldn’t figure out what to do with them, like Yusuf, who spends the runtime being a spy-not-a-spy-just-kidding-I-was-a-spy. Porpentina, the love interest for Redmayne, only shows up for a wedding scene at the end. Theseus Scamander spends half the movie in jail. Hell, Redmayne himself is sidelined in his own franchise. The film spends its runtime juggling all of its named characters just long enough to distract us before throwing them all back together in Picasso painting of idiocy. 

There’s a very convoluted plot point about Grindelwald being able to see the future by killing a magic baby deer. It’s meant to be a hindrance for our heroes, but it ultimately ends up being completely fucking useless and unnecessary. Dumbledore has a fun little chain that kills him if he betrays Grindelwald, but not the other way around, and this also slows things down. This device is a massive plot hole, and it directly and completely contradicts a defining moment in the books. It’s literally disgusting how blatantly idiotic this device is. It’s like if the new Star Wars movies said ‘hey, remember how Anakin’s mom died? Ok well she didn’t and she’s still alive.’

I don’t think anyone who made this movie actually read a single page of Harry Potter. The fun muggle guy (aka the only person with any sort of personality and charisma), Jakob Kowalski, gets a wand. Except, remember that really iconic moment when Harry gets his wand and the wind blows and things light up and Olivander gets all mysterious? It was a whole thing, and forced Voldemort to go hunt down the Elder Wand in the first place. It’s a thing. It’s a whole fucking thing. Ok well the idiot muggle man gets a wand and it’s played off as a joke.

All was not well

Look. Harry Potter is a really dear fantasy to my heart. Book Hermione was my first literary crush, which is why I have such a burning attraction to Emma Watson. I used to bust my chops to make enough money to buy the books when they came out, and to go see the movies when they were released. I remember sitting at the Yerba Buena gardens the day The Deathly Hallows was released and reading through the first few chapters, and needing a moment when Hedwig died. I remember the elation I felt when Molly Weasley killed Bellatrix after saying, NOT MY DAUGHTER, YOU BITCH. That was so cool. I remember the pure sadness I felt when I read the final words, “All was well.” Then we got this nonsense, so fuck yes I’m irritated.

2/10.

Kowalski is literally raped for months by Queenie in the second movie, and in this one he’s all like, ‘come back i love u :(‘. JK Rowling is SO problematic, my god.

EDIT: Oh also, the secret of Dumbledore is that the character Ezra Miller plays is Aberforth Dumbledore’s son, making him Albus Dumbledore’s nephew. So, we’re gonna get some of this shit in the future too. CHRIST.