FANTASTIC BEASTS: THE SECRETS OF DUMBLEDORE (Cert 12, 136 mins, Fantasy/Adventure/Action/Comedy/Romance, Warner Bros Home Entertainment, available from May 31 on Amazon/BT TV Store/Curzon Home Cinema/iTunes/Sky Store/TalkTalk TV Store and other download and streaming services, available from July 25 on DVD £19.99/Blu-ray £26.99/4K Ultra HD Blu-ray £34.99)
Starring: Eddie Redmayne, Jude Law, Mads Mikkelsen, Ezra Miller, Callum Turner, Jessica Williams, Dan Fogler, Alison Sudol, Victoria Yeates, William Nadylam.
ALBUS Dumbledore (Jude Law), professor of Defence Against The Dark Arts at Hogwarts, cannot move against Gellert Grindelwald (Mads Mikkelsen) because of the blinding blood oath made when they were idealistic teenagers and madly in love.
He implores trusted magizoologist Newt Scamander (Eddie Redmayne) to assemble a crack team to undertake a perilous mission designed to confuse Grindelwald and his followers.
Meanwhile, Credence Barebone (Ezra Miller) is fashioned into a weapon of vengeful destruction and Queenie (Alison Sudol) agonises over her decision to abandon sweetheart Jacob to do Grindelwald's bidding.
Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets Of Dumbledore is disappointingly light on narrative substance and lacks the palpable peril of its predecessor, The Crimes Of Grindelwald.
A heart-breaking personal loss at the conclusion of the second film is largely ignored, the dramatic reveal involving Credence does not get the satisfying pay-off we crave and Mikkelsen dilutes the maniacal menace of the antagonistic dark wizard previously portrayed by Johnny Depp.
David Yates's sweeping fantasy certainly has its undeniable pleasures, including gorgeous production and costume design that ravishes the eyes. Comic relief courtesy of adorable, digitally rendered critters is heightened by Redmayne's hilariously hypnotic hip swivel during an outlandish subterranean set piece.
The Secrets Of Dumbledore is less than the sum of its polished and entertaining parts.
With an overly generous running time of 142 minutes, it's also the longest instalment of the franchise… and feels like it too.
Rating: 3/5
MS MARVEL (6 episodes, starts streaming from June 8 exclusively on Disney+, Fantasy/Adventure/Drama/Romance)
A MONTH after the concluding episode of Moon Knight, another colourful hero comes to the fore in a six-part fantasy adventure created by Bisha K Ali as part of Phase Four of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
Available in weekly instalments, Ms Marvel continues to lay narrative groundwork for the 2023 summer blockbuster The Marvels by chronicling the coming-of-age story of Muslim American teenager Kamala Khan (Iman Vellani).
She is a self-described megafan of Captain Marvel and an avid writer of fan fiction, who lives in Jersey City with her parents Yusuf (Mohan Kapur) and Muneeba (Zenobia Shroff).
Kamala feels like a misfit at school, even with the support of good friends Bruno Carrelli (Matt Lintz) and Nakia Bahadir (Yasmeen Fletcher), and she nurtures a crush on a boy called Kamran (Rish Shah).
Her sense of alienation eases when Kamala inherits superpowers like the heroes she has always idolised but the teenager quickly learns that life doesn't instantly improve when you stand further apart from your peers.
