Let the <em>Fantastic Beasts</em> Movies Die
The prequel series has tried to follow the <em>Harry Potter</em> playbook—but neglects the original franchise’s most spellbinding features.
This article contains spoilers for Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore.
The final showdown in Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore is supposed to be epic. Albus Dumbledore, the mighty wizard played by Jude Law, comes face-to-face with his former lover turned nemesis, Gellert Grindelwald (Mads Mikkelsen), breaking the pact they’d made as young men never to fight each other. But when the two began firing flashy spells from their wands, the audience at my showing—nowhere near sold out, on a Saturday evening—laughed.
Maybe they were thrown off by the rushed lead-up to the scene, which had, a beat earlier, involved an election for the
