Metacritic-Rezensionen

It can be said, with some certainty, that ‘Fantastic Beasts’ has finally found its footing. This latest entry is the most fun and most buoyant in the relatively young series. And it’s enough to make you actually look forward to a subsequent installment (should there be one) instead of actively dreading it.

This film has enough stunning special effects and adorable baby animals to keep you entertained for 2½ hours.

It’s good-natured entertainment, though there is still something weightless and formless about the narrative.

With this film, nuance seems to have disapparated from the wizarding world altogether.

The series’ third outing, Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore, falls into precisely the same traps as its predecessor, offering up an unwieldy, mostly unsettling mash-up of adult themes and childish whimsy, made still more inscrutable by too many subplots, too many characters, and a tone that veers wildly off-course at every possible turn.

The Secrets of Dumbledore holds positives and negatives alike, and that makes for an entertaining, but slightly unsatisfying viewing experience. There is magic to be found, though, and perhaps that is all that matters.

It is all extraordinarily interminable, even if Yates and company had the good sense to swap out Johnny Depp for Mikkelsen this time around.

It looks drab and feels like it was made by people who want to leave its magical premise behind, even though the series refuses to have anything resembling grown-up politics or perspectives.

Through it all the technical work remains of the highest quality. It seems a shame that Stuart Craig and Neil Lamont’s lavish production design and Colleen Atwood’s gorgeous costumes – both leaning into unreal golden-era Hollywood – are wasted on such an emotionally unengaging slog.

An evident attempt to right the ship has turned into a calamitous case of mission drift, as a property with no identity travels in nonsensical circles, looking for a sustainable new direction.