Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore made its appearance in theaters on Thursday, April 14th. David Yates directed this film. The cast features Mads Mikkelsen as Gellert Grindelwald, Jude Law as Professor Albus Dumbledore, Jessica Williams as Lally Hicks, Eddie Redmayne as Newt Scamander, and many other actors and actresses. Each wizard, both Grindelwald and Dumbledore, have a team of witches and wizards helping them fight against the other. 

  The plot centers around Gellert Grindelwald wanting to take control of the wizarding world, and destroy the muggles’ world as well. Professor Albus Dumbledore can’t stop him alone, so he pulls together a team of wizards and witches, led by Newt Scamander, to help him. 

  The Harry Potter series by J.K Rowling has turned into a huge franchise over the past decade. As many probably know, these movies feature Emma Watson, Daniel Radcliffe, and Rupert Grint as the main characters. The franchise originated from the series of seven books, published from 1997-2007. The original eight movies have since expanded to add a spinoff of three Fantastic Beasts movies, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald, and now Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore. 

  In The Secrets of Dumbledore, one of the most important beasts featured is the absolutely adorable Qilin (pronounced as Chillin). Beasts from the first two movies make an appearance as well, including Pickett, Newt’s stick bug-buddy, as well as Teddy the niffler. This film also features a scene where Newt (Eddie Redmayne), and Theseus (Callum Turner) participate in a dance with scorpions while stuck in a dungeon. 

  These movies hold a history of having a lot going on. The plot is constantly moving, so it can be hard to keep up if you struggle to infer. Being two and a half hours long, one would suppose it has to have quite a big plot. At its most basic level, this movie is about an election and what happens when corrupt people want to win an election too bad to play fairly. Yup, I’m talking about election rigging. There are also underlying themes of racism, for lack of a better word, except this time, it’s muggles vs. purebloods.

  One of the wizards that Grindelwald places on his team is Credence Barebone, portrayed by Ezra Miller, who may or may not be closer to said secrets of Dumbledore than we realize at the beginning. Another one of these secrets is that Dumbledore may or may not be gay?

  Ezra Miller does a great job portraying Credence, but it could be somewhat diminished depending on your opinion of Miller’s recent arrests for disorderly conduct, harassment, and assault. 

  I enjoyed this third film in the series much more than the second movie, although it doesn’t quite reach “watch over and over again” status for me. Before watching, you’ll want a basic knowledge of the Fantastic Beasts franchise and previous movies. If you enjoy the Harry Potter franchise and like fast-paced fantasy movies, this one is worth a trip to the theater. 

Watch the official trailer here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y9dr2zw-TXQ