The Secrets of Dumbledore is a rare film that somehow manages to be both overstuffed and undercooked simultaneously. It’s almost admirable how vacuous it is as a piece of storytelling.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Jul 15, 2024

[Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore] focuses more on generating nostalgia for the magic of the Harry Potter films than on giving it a creative spark to sustain the entertainment of its plot. [Full review in Spanish]

| Dec 5, 2023

It might just be the best film of the spinoff franchise yet.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Oct 10, 2023

The magic has vanished...

| Original Score: D+ | Sep 26, 2023

Mikkelsen is made to look like a place-holder, rehearsing the lines until a proper monster can be found... The franchise’s sweet side, by contrast, is working a treat.

| Sep 19, 2023

There are enough good performances and special effects to save The Secrets of Dumbledore.

| Original Score: 2.5/5 | Aug 10, 2023

The franchise has gone dark and self-serious, yet so unintelligible that any moral messaging has gone out the window...It’s impressive, honestly, to make an obvious Hitler figure so toothless.

| Original Score: D | Aug 2, 2023

Remarkably unremarkable, with little to no magic or charm attached.

| Original Score: D | Jul 29, 2023

It might not be a home run but I actually felt the magic was back!

| Jul 25, 2023

Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore is a significant improvement over its predecessors, proving that Steve Kloves really can work miracles.

| Original Score: B | Jul 25, 2023

The beasts that made this franchise so likeable get as much screen time as possible, but this world is just far too big for them now.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Jul 25, 2023

Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore is a dismal slog of a movie, somehow stretching thirty minutes worth of plot to almost two-and-a-half hours.

| Jul 25, 2023

I thought through most of Potter 11 what a pity it was these gorgeous environments and exquisite costumes had been employed for no discernible purpose.

| Original Score: 0.5/4 | Mar 10, 2023

Where can Warner Bros. go with a franchise that is diminished by the presence of a transphobic progenitor? Not very far when that individual in question is still writing the material.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Nov 23, 2022

If you ever liked any of the Fantastic Beasts movies, there is technically no reason for you to dislike the latest one, Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore.

| Oct 3, 2022

Redmayne proves to be an all-terrain actor, capable of circumventing the childlike marks of his creature. [Full review in Spanish]

| Original Score: 3/4 | Sep 1, 2022

There are honestly worse movies this year, but on a moral level I’d rather you watch them than this, because at least there you don’t have to give a portion of your purchase to Prosecco Orson Scott Card.

| Original Score: 2/10 | Jul 26, 2022

The third in the Fantastic Beasts Harry Potter spin-off franchise remains the best of the three. It sells the idea of a magical action blockbuster better than any of the other films with its Mission: Impossible magicians-instead-of-spies story.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Jul 9, 2022

Here’s a movie that's strictly ab-drab.

| Original Score: 1.5/4 | Jul 3, 2022

It may have been somewhat amusing to spend more time with some of the more intriguing characters of this world, but it's hard not to come away indifferent to the film's stretched-out plot, which, like the previous entries, is rather forgettable.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Jun 27, 2022