Imagine if you will, the blandest, least interesting fantasy streaming series you can, slap on the name recognition value of an already middling feature film that would’ve been best left buried in the eighties, and throw in some of the most obnoxious millennial-tier writing ever put to paper, and you get the Disney Plus Willow series; an eight-part adventure that, in spite of the few things it actually does well, will leave you feeling even more devoid of energy than its stars.

I doubt that 1988’s Willow is anybody’s favourite film ever, but in spite of its flaws, its a fun, dark fantasy adventure that can be appreciated for its innovative special effects and antiquated style that puts it in the same vein as movies like Labyrinth or The Dark Crystal. Still, it’s no surprise that in the era of never-ending content output and relentless reboots, revivals and reimaginings, Lucasfilm would dig one of the few remaining original IPs (that they haven’t already butchered) out of the grave for a Disney Plus streaming series. As you can imagine, I’ve hardly been anticipating this release with much enthusiasm, so I’ve seen virtually nothing in terms of promotional material, nor do I have any particular expectations going into the series, alas, given its potential for a review, I’ve deigned to give it a shot.

Spoilers ahead!

Amazingly, despite sitting down and watching the entirety of the Willow series in the last three days, I already find myself abnormally struggling to recall plot details and character names, which already tells me plenty about any lasting impact the show might, or more accurately, won’t have. Nevertheless, the long and short of it is that when Prince Airk (Dempsey Bryk), the son of Sorsha and Madmartigan from the original film, is kidnapped, his twin sister Kit (Ruby Cruz) and a misfit band of allies set out to rescue him from the forces of evil. Along the way, they’re joined by the titular Willow (Warwick Davis), who reveals that the servant girl Dove (Ellie Bamber), who tagged along with their adventure, is in fact Elora Danan, the prophesised future Empress; destined to unite the realm. Each of the heroes do actually have distinct personalities and motivations to begin with, giving them some much needed chemistry to upholster the stifling empty platitudes they churn out at one another, but as the story goes on they sort of bleed together into this homogenous mass devoid of meaningful characterisation. Unsurprisingly for something coming out of modern-day Lucasfilm, the women of the story fall into the tired “strong female fantasy hero” stereotype, as they ditch the dresses and weddings for battle and bravery, whilst the men tend to be overly flawed at best, and downright idiots at worse; particularly Tony Revolori’s Graydon, or Amar Chadha-Patel’s Boorman, who treated as the writers’ punching bags for pretty much the entire season. Willow himself feels utterly useless for the story beyond delivering constant exposition and the odd faux-inspirational speech here or there, as well as a couple of lucky saves when necessary to the plot. Still, arguably the worst part of the show’s writing is its unrelenting blandness; offering a textbook young-adult fantasy plot that’s only further weighed down by the constant injection of Reddit-level humour into every scene that undercuts any emotional stakes and completely obliterates any sense of tone.

It seems that Willow‘s scripts were clearly just as uninteresting for the actors as they were for me, with the majority of the cast phoning it in with deadpan delivery and unenthused attempts at emoting in just about every scene weighing down the already horrendous dialogue present at every turn. To his credit, Tony Revolori gives a halfway decent performance, which is probably why he was the only character I seemed to gravitate towards in the entire season, and Warwick Davis similarly gives it his best – unfortunately, the minds behind this show failed to realise that his extended repertoire of roles playing freaky little dudes doesn’t translate to actual acting ability. Still, I won’t place all the blame on the poor actors – direction is after all an art, and one that clearly wasn’t employed in the making of this series. Horrendous editing makes many scenes borderline unwatchable, and there’s practically zero effort put in to recreating the dark fantasy aesthetic of the original; leaving the setting feeling painfully generic and indistinguishable from dozens of other shows of this calibre, even when the set design itself is more often than not fairly decent. A lot of the visual aspects of the show are actually pretty good, no doubt owing to the work of filmmaking powerhouse and Lucasfilm subsidiary Industrial Light and Magic on the series, with some impressive CGI, solid costuming, and some downright fantastic design work for many of the villains and creatures our heroes face on their journey; wasted as it is on the largely inconsequential adversaries. Although our protagonists tend to trample over their foes with ease, that’s not to say the fight scenes are much good; when you’re not subject to overchoreographed melee tussles, Willow also offers CGI-fuelled magic duels that seem like a borderline infringement on the Harry Potter film series, not to mention the fucking Iron-Man-esque suit-up scene in the finale. As well as offering an utterly forgettable score (a bad look for the usually skilled James Horner), the series is also saturated with jarringly out-of-place pop songs; hammering home that Willow is about as far from the aesthetic of the original film as possible.

With it all said and done, I’m quite happy to commit this series to the lowest depths of my memory – so long as I haven’t already forgotten it in its entirety. By not even attempting to replicate the style and tone of its source material, Willow only exacerbates its shaky plot connections to the 1988 movie, and instead provides little else than an uninspired and overbearingly juvenile fantasy-by-the-numbers that’ll sooner put you to sleep than rouse any emotion from you. Should you have been keenly anticipating a return to the world of Willow, then stay far, far away, and in the more likely case that you were looking for something halfway decent to watch on Disney Plus and stumbled across this new series, I’d advise finding literally anything else to do with your time.

3/10