Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore, unfortunately, continues a long-running problem with the wizarding world franchise and its magical duels. The Secrets of Dumbledore culminates in a brief duel between the titular character and his enemy Gellert Grindelwald. During this duel, the problems that have plagued wizarding battles since the Harry Potter days rear their heads.
Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore continues where the last film left off. Dumbledore is searching for a way to oppose Grindelwald without breaking their blood pact which means neither can interfere with the other's affairs. Dumbledore does this by enlisting the help of Newt Scamander, a magizooligist. Towards the end of the film, Dumbledore and Grindelwald's blood pact is broken, allowing the two to engage in a brief duel.
It is in this duel that the problems that have been present in the franchise for a while are highlighted. One of the major ways in which duels between two wizards have been shown across both the Harry Potter franchise, and Fantastic Beasts, is two streams of magic flowing from the duelist's wands, connected at the center. When one of the duelist's magic streams is powerful enough to reach the other, the duel seems to be won. This was the case with the final battle between Voldemort and Harry in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - Part 2, with Harry's Expelliarmus spell reaching the dark wizard, disarming him, and destroying Voldemort for good. The technique is used a lot across Deathly Hallows - Part 2, as well as other action-heavy Potter movies like Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, though never as intensely as Harry and Voldemort's final duel. Also, both franchises show duels as wizards simply thrusting their wands at the enemy, which they simply deflect without any real magic happening. This dueling visualization was carried into Fantastic Beast: The Secrets of Dumbledore with Dumbledore vs. Grindelwald.
This is unfortunate, as the two are said to be some of the most powerful wizards in the world. To this day, the best duel scene in any wizarding world movie was Dumbledore vs. Voldemort in Order of the Phoenix. This duel shows more variation in the spells, with giant snakes made of fire, giant balls of water, explosions using Voldemort's dark energy, and flying shards of glass being used in combat. This is infinitely more engaging, intense, and visually interesting than the endless flicking of wands and a simple beam of light struggle. With Dumbledore and Grindelwald in Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore, this was, unfortunately, the case with the two wizards engaging in one of the less engaging duels in the wizarding world franchise.
If indeed Fantastic Beasts 4 & 5 do happen, it is clear the dueling issue must be addressed. Should David Yates, director of every wizarding world movie since Order of the Phoenix, return for the final two Fantastic Beasts movies, a change in the visualization of wizarding action is needed, or at least the reversion back to how the duel between Dumbledore and Voldemort was presented. For now, though, Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore, unfortunately, features the less interesting duel presentation, presenting a notable lack of magic in a world full of witches and wizards.