Streaming on: Disney+
Episodes viewed: 7 of 8
Most fantasy films of the 1980s were cheap and looked it, but Willow was an exception. The George Lucas-produced, Ron Howard-directed comedy adventure had real movie stars, a fun quest structure and a great James Horner score. This TV sequel therefore has something to live up to, and the good news is that, with a bunch of bickering Gen Z misfits at its heart, it offers all the necessary swashbuckling and pratfalling.
The inevitable quest begins when Queen Sorsha (Joanne Whalley) is celebrating the engagement of her daughter Kit (Ruby Cruz) to Prince Graydon (Tony Revolori) when dark forces kidnap her son, Prince Airk (Dempsey Bryk). Kit heads off to rescue him with sparring partner Jade (Erin Kellyman, a little underserved), Graydon, kitchen girl Dove (Ellie Bamber) who’s in love with Airk, and the unpredictable Boorman (Amar Chadha-Patel). First stop is finding Warwick Davis’ Willow, and then go confront a world-threatening baddie.
This is an unapologetically traditional fantasy.
There’s a gaping hole at the heart of the story where Val Kilmer’s Madmartigan should be, but everyone steps up to fill the void: Kit has the brooding down pat (someone cast her as Batman); Airk manages Kilmer’s trick of being both genuine dreamboat and ridiculous poser, and Boorman brings hilarious untrustworthiness. They’re a likeable, energetic bunch, with enough romantic entanglements to launch a million fanfics, especially in the sizzling chemistry between Kit and Jade. By contrast, Davis is, sadly, often saddled with hunks of exposition rather than the comedy where he excels, but he comes alive anytime he’s given lighter stuff and in emotional scenes with his real-life daughter, Annabelle Davis, playing Willow’s daughter Mims.
This is an unapologetically traditional fantasy, with no pretentions to Game Of Thrones-style grimness or Lord Of The Rings cultural depth. But it also has vivid characters, scary moments and fun obstacles, and they carry it briskly along. In the end it relies far less on nostalgia and more on expanding the world of the original film to encompass new complexity and new identities among all these daikinis, and that’s a real treat.
