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‘Secrets of Dumbledore’ a success

By Candice Black - | May 23, 2022

The Harry Potter universe returned to theatres in April with “Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore,” the third movie in the “Fantastic Beasts” series.

These movies have a lot of mixed reviews, and while I can see some of the viewpoints, overall, the movies are good and this one in particular made my “Potterhead” heart happy.

Albus Dumbledore, Newt Scamander and “no-maj” Jacob Kowalski continue with their battle against Gellert Grindlewald and the story takes viewers back to Hogwarts, New York and magical places in the wizarding world.

First off, the cast is almost perfect. Jude Law as Dumbldore is nothing short of perfect and I can’t imagine anyone else playing a younger version of the character I know so well. Eddie Redmayne impeccably plays Scamander with his precious, sweet, nurturing personality and Dan Fogler stars as Kowalski, probably my favorite character of the series.

But of course I can’t talk about the cast without mentioning the obvious — the absence of Johnny Depp as Mads Mikkelsen replaced him as Grindlewald. While I won’t get into the reasons he was asked to resign — trust me, you don’t want to get me started on that — I was disappointed in their choice of Mikkelsen.

Yes, I admit, I may be a little biased because of my love for Johnny Depp, but I would gladly admit it if the new actor played the character well.

But I was unimpressed with his style and lack of facial expressions.

Aside from that, I truly loved the movie overall. It has audiences laughing and crying either sad tears, or in my case, happy ones after seeing the Hogwarts castle again. There’s one particular scene where Kowalski is sitting in the Great Hall and is being pranked by some Slytherins. I loved that so much.

Plotwise, “Secrets of Dumbledore” was the most intriguing of the trilogy thus far and I can tell the series is leading up to something really awesome. This movie started to bridge the gap between what happens is that timeframe and Harry Potter’s.

Still being able to see Harry Potter movies in theatres is pretty cool. Sure, I’d rather have another book series to read, but I’ll take this.

Candice Black is the special projects editor for the Marietta Times. She can be reached at cblack@newsandsentinel.com.