Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore - 4K Blu-ray Review

[Michael Scott]

Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore



Movie:
4K Video:
Video:
Audio:
Extras:
Final Score:



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Movie
The last couple of years has been a HECTIC hayride for Hollywood, and more importantly, the cast of Fantastic Beasts and their various secondary characters. First we had the (now exonerated) accusations of Johnny Depp abusing Amber Heard that caused him to be dropped by not only Disney, but Warner Brothers dropped him after only filming one scene in this movie. Then the last few months has been an utter nightmare as Ezra Miller has been under heavy scrutiny for his obvious mental and physical issues coming to light, which sadly means The Flash, and his career as an actor is pretty much over at this point. There was the massive upset of the pandemic, then the tepid box office response when Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore hit theaters a while back. All in all, it’s just been a roller coaster ride for sure.

After the depressing finale of The Crimes of Grindelwald the third movie takes a more adventure laden route, as the big secrets of the previous film take over instead of Newt (Eddie Redmayne) and his zoology twist. Dumbledore (Jude Law) is trying to figure out a way to stop Grindelwald (now played admirably by Mads Mikkelson) from taking over the magic AND the muggle world. Grindelwald has gotten ahold of a Chillen, a fantastical beast (hehe) with the ability of foresight. Meaning he can predict the future and use that to manipulate people into taking over the magic world. Dumbledore is powerless to stop him due to the magic locket that he and Grindelwald formed in their youth, but he can use those around him as pawns in an effort to outsmart the rogue magician.

Newt, Muggle Jacob (Dan Fogler), Newt’s brother, and a couple of older faces all band together to try a hail Mary. Unbeknownst to Grindelwald there was actually a SECOND Chillen born that same night that the magician stole it, and with a clever game of misdirection, Dumlbedore figures that they can confuse his opponent with a myriad of overlapping plans to confuse the foresight and stop him before it’s too late.

The Secrets of Dumlbedore feels a lot like Marvel Phase 4. It’s a matter of lightening not striking twice, and while it has a lot of effort, a lot of cast, and a lot of money behind it, The Fantastic Beasts series simply just isn’t up to the magic of the Harry Potter series (just like Marvel phase 4 has lacked the entertainment of Marvel phases 1-3). The movies feel as bloated and over extended as The Hobbit movies, with this latest entry just feeling dull and lifeless. The action is simply redundant and boring, and while there’s some solid entertainment to be had, it all just feels a pale shadow of what came before.

It also doesn’t help that Newt has pretty much been sidelined in his own series. Instead of focusing on fantastic beasts (and where to find them), this is a Dumbledore and Grindewald movie with Newt playing a background character along with a myriad of other characters as well. As such, the whole thing just feels a bit warmed over and tepid. Not bad, not great, but a moderate level movie that seems to be losing steam even though a 4th and 5th movie are already in the works, with a planned 6th film to round it out if they can get away with it.




Rating:

Rated PG-13 for some fantasy action/violence.




4K Video: Video:

Needless to say, The Secrets of Dumbledore looks great on 4K UHD. The film employs a muted and color desaturated image that thrives off of gray fog and some haziness. Still, the 4K disc handles everything quite well, showing off great facial details, wonderful nuances and details with clothing, and some MILD softness where the film gets CGI intensive (which can happen pretty often). The deeper blacks from the Dolby Vision and HDR application are some of the biggest saviors of this encode, as it really deepens the shadows and murky underground lair when Newt breaks out his brother, or the ash gray world where Dumbledore and Grindelwald make their final battle. It may not be an eye candy disc due to the desaturated and muted look, but it’s still a technically well done encode that blasts the Blu-ray out of the water.



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Audio:

Both the 4K UHD and the Blu-ray discs sport the same Dolby Atmos track, which is on par with the excellent video quality in the 4K UHD set. It carves up a similar sound to the previous two films, with solid sonic ambiance, and mild bass that really kicks into high gear when the wizard battles unleash. The flick is dialog heavy for a majority of the film, but the 3rd act brings several key point battles with kinetic surround usage and great discrete overhead usage. There is something to be desired in the pulse pounding bass of previous Harry Potter flicks, but it’s still a great sounding Atmos track.











Extras:

• The Dumbledore Family Tree
• Dumbledore Through the Ages
• Magical or Muggle
• The Magic of Hogwarts
• Even More Fantastic Beasts
• Newt in the Wild
• The German Ministry of Magic
• A Dumbledore Duel
• The Candidates' Dinner
• Erkstag Jailbreak
• Battle in Bhutan
• The Secrets of Cursed Child
• Deleted Scenes

Final Score: ​

Honestly, The Secrets of Dumbledore is a middle of the road fantasy film that had a lot of problems coming to the silver screen, so hopefully Warner and Rowling can right the ship for the 4th and 5th upcoming movies. The 4K UHD disc is a great looking/sounding disc, and it sports a healthy amount of extras too. It may not be top tier Harry Potter world fantasy, but it’s still a fun enough watch.


Technical Specifications:

Starring: Jude Law, Ezra Miller, Eddie Redmayne, Dan Folger, Mads Mikkelsen, Richard Coyle
Directed by: David Yates
Written by: J.K. Rowling, Steve Kloves
Aspect Ratio: 2.39:1 HEVC
Audio: English: Dolby Atmos (Dolby TrueHD 7.1 Core), English, French, Spanish DD 5.1, English DVS
Subtitles: English SDH, French, German, Italian, Spanish, Cantonese, Danish, Finnish, Korean, Mandarin (Traditional), Norwegian, Swedish
Studio: Warner Brothers
Rated: PG-13
Runtime: 143 minutes
Blu-ray Release Date: June 28th, 2022

Recommendation: Decent Watch

 

[Epoxy1]

I haven't been able to get up the nerve to watch this, but I will before the week is out. As luck would have it, I went what seemed like weeks without any discs to review and all of a sudden, I have a half a dozen sitting on my desk with this movie sitting at the bottom of the pile (lower priority). My daughter is a HUGE HP fan and she really didn't like this movie at all...that doesn't bode well for me.

 

[Travis Ballstadt]

I really enjoyed the first film. The second was a bit of a mess. Will likely rent this in the coming weeks for a watch. It's a shame, because I really enjoyed Redmayne in the first, and I am fully on board the Mads Mikkelson train as well - I think we need More Mads in More Movies.