Critics reviews

[The Secrets of Dumbledore] mirrors the first [film in the Wizarding World franchise], which is to say that it feels like an extended prologue for a better movie that's yet to materialize. In hindsight, Rowling should have funneled her Harry Potter prequel into a limited series, where leisurely pacing is more the norm.

The lazy writing is what makes this film such a frustrating experience. With a little more craft, the film could be as fantastic as the title. Maybe the next two films (gah) will be more successful.1100

The movie is a dour-looking thing... viscous with a nostalgia that goes beyond fan service... all The Secrets of Dumbledore is yearning for is some structure and reason for being.

These “Fantastic Beasts” movies are just not good. They’re extremely OK, but never truly inspiring or transporting... each new movie in this spinoff franchise reminds us of how unnecessary and inferior they are.

[The Secrets of Dumbledore] mostly goes through the motions, making a big deal out of revelations that fans will find old-hat, unceremoniously closing the door or ignoring storylines that previously seemed to be important, and sidelining characters who used to be the protagonists.

[The film] can’t decide what it’s about on a moment-to-moment basis, let alone a film-to-film basis. The third film in the series is only sure of one thing: Anything remotely resembling Harry Potter will make money

A mysteriously turgid film... Bad stuff happens all the time, especially in industrial enterprises of this magnitude, but usually there’s some good stuff to dilute the debacle. Not here, though.

This is the most absorbing and well-paced film in the trilogy to date, despite its nearly two-and-a-half-hour running time — de rigueur for modern spectacles that want to convince audiences they’re getting enough bang for their buck.

The new movies are built primarily for those who want for nothing more than endless references, footnotes, in-jokes, Easter eggs, cute callbacks, breadcrumbs and vague shapes of things to come.

[The Secrets of Dumbledore] is a relatively lightweight but still consistently entertaining and magical journey that rights the ship after the utter convoluted disaster titled “Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald”

A bafflingly bad project that can only be described as “anti-cinema.” It has all the charm and fun of a contractual obligation, and dares to pose the question: What if an entire movie was gray?

[Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore] is still a lumbering, unwieldy creature compared to the first film: fewer fantastic beasts, more stuffy political plotting and electoral malpractice.