"Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore" A Masterclass in Ruining a Franchise

    As someone who absolutely adores the Harry Potter series, I really wanted this series to go well, after all who wants their favourite series to slowly fade away for eternity? I never personally experienced any of the books or the movies in person, and so this was my chance to show my fandom and really geek over it. Although, realistically, I should have known this movie would be a mess considering Rowling's track record.

    Now, I apologize in advance, because this review of the movie will certainly not focus only on the movie, but rather be more of a chronicle of how J.K. Rowling has managed to absolutely decimate any sort of future that the Harry Potter Franchise might have.

    First off, there's Rowling's odd obsession with being woke, but also not? Like take for example, her retroactive alterations to both Dumbledore and Hermione. In her defense, Dumbledore being gay is quite in the realm of possibility, considering the fact that there were fan theories about the two, since they did seem to have a special relationship in the books. However, to try and call Hermione black after casting Emma Watson, a white woman, as Hermione, while also having all previous promotional material portray Hermione as white, sounds like a poor attempt to get some "woke" points.

    The reason I say all of this is because Rowling's credibility, and the fandoms trust in her to properly continue the series has diminished significantly in the past years. Not to mention she is a TERF(Trans-Exclusionary Radical Feminist) who also had some "offensive" choices when writing the books, including nasty comparisons between the Jewish and goblins while also writing very lazy names for minority characters such as Cho Chang and Kingsley Shacklebolt. 

    Basically, this movie was doomed to fail, because frankly Potterhead's have all but given up on Rowling and it has one of the worst naming schemes I've seen in a while. Like, why is the entire series called Fantastic Beasts, when barely any  "Fantastic Beasts" showed up in any movie past the first. The first film was wonderful and should have been left alone, because every single sequel to this movie has seen the "Fantastic Beasts" part of the title shrink in any promotional material. There was no point for them to try and capitalize on the Fantastic Beasts name as it ends up ruining movies that should be more Dumbledore-centric and less focused on "The Pointless Adventures of Newt Scamander".

    Sadly, this review is technically on the latest film, and while I could go on much longer about how Harry Potter sucks in the modern age, I should explain why I don't want to focus on this film at all. It is utterly boring, and not at all appealing to anyone who is a fan of Harry Potter. As previously mentioned, Newt Scamander needs to be dropped, not because of anything the actor has actually done, but because the movie continually attempts to shoehorn in Newt, Queenie, and Jacob, for literally no reason, just to say it was all part of some big movie series. They have very much outlived what they were supposed to do and its clear that this film is just about Dumbledore and his battle with Grindelwald, which will happen eventually. 

    I'd say much of this movie is filler, but frankly I'm not sure what counts as filler and what counts as a random scene tacked on at this point because it feels like multiple scenes stitched together with no order or cohesion. To me, this film is the opposite of too much exposition, as it really provides little to no exposition, meaning that if you aren't already a dedicated Potterhead, this film is bound to confuse you. I mean this movie just chugs along like nothing is happening with 4 different storylines just sort of existing and ending without any satisfying conclusion, all so the climax can occur. A climax mind you, that is utterly awful, with everyone just awkwardly standing there and the quickest and most anti-climactic fight I've ever seen. I wish I was kidding when I said the movie explains away all inconsistencies by saying "the plan is to be unpredictable and have things not go to plan" and that  the blood bond broke because I defended and he attacked, I'm not too sure about the rest". 

Final Score: 40/100

    Ultimately, this film was a waste of my time and anyone else who watches it. It really provides no extra lore for any fans of the franchise, only adding in pointless bits of information about a protagonist who isn't actually the main protagonist, while also being too confusing/boring for any non-fans or casual fans. Combine this with J.K. Rowling's general incompetence and it is easy to see why this is another sign of Harry Potter's bleak future.