The original 1988 film Willow wasn’t a huge hit, believe it or not. It made a profit, but its worldwide grosses were just over $130 million. People’s esteem for the story has grown over the past 34 years, mainly due to Warwick Davis’ affable performance as Willow Ufgood. So fans were excited when Davis announced that he is reprising his role for a Disney+ series, and instead of trying to do the story over again, this is more of a next-gen sequel.
WILLOW: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?
Opening Shot: The book that contains the story of WIllow. A voice says, “In a time of dread, a child was born. Elora Danan, destined to save our world.”
The Gist: What follows is a recap of what happened in the 1988 film Willow, with the sorcerer WIllow Ufgood (Warwick Davis) saving Elora from evil and delivering her to now-queen Sorsha (Joanne Whalley) in Tir Asleen. But Sorsha had to hide Elora’s identity from everyone, including Elora, as Willow envisioned a new evil arriving to destroy her in the somewhat distant future.
In that future, Sorsha’s daughter, Kit Thanthalos (Ruby Cruz) is a skilled fighter, and has always fantasized going beyond the Barrier with her bestie Jade Claymore (Erin Kellyman) and having amazing adventures. Kit’s brother Arik (Dempsey Bryk) is more interested in Dove (Ellie Bamber), a baker on the castle’s staff, who makes him feel different than any of his many previous paramours have.
As much as Kit would rather be out on adventures, Sorsha has other plans; she is to marry Graydon Hastur (Tony Revolori), the prince of the neighboring kingdom of Galladoorn. Of course, Kit chafes at the fact that she’s in the middle of a diplomatic pairing and can’t control her own fate; for his part, Graydon isn’t thrilled about the arranged marriage, either.
She decides to escape and go past the Barrier herself that night, and shows Jade how she really feels about her. But then a mysterious group called The Gales attack, injuring and killing many of the queen’s guards, as well as Queen Sorsha herself. They also abduct Arik before retreating.
To find Arik, the queen looks for volunteers to go on a quest, which will take them beyond the Barrier. Kit, of course, volunteers, as does Jade. Graydon’s father volunteers the reluctant prince. Arik’s protector, Jorgen Kase (Simon Armstrong) volunteers, and the queen drags notorious criminal Thraxus Boorman (Amar Chadha-Patel) out of the dungeon and offers to commute his sentence. He’s not only a very capable warrior, but he’s also been beyond the Barrier.
Their first task is to find the one Newlyn wizard who can help them: Willow. On their way, they encounter Dove; Arik had proposed to her before he was abducted, and she’s determined to find him. She proves more capable than she at first appears, especially when she gets across a gorge on her own. When the group finally reaches, Willow, the wizard reveals that Dove’s identity isn’t what she thinks it is.
What Shows Will It Remind You Of? Given that Willow is a sequel to Ron Howard’s 1988 film of the same name, starring Davis, Whalley and Val Kilmer, we’ll go with that.
Our Take: Jonathan Kasdan created this series sequel to Willow, with Howard and George Lucas, who created the original characters, among the executive producers; Stephen Woolfenden directs the first episode.
Unlike the fantasy franchise entries that have debuted in the past few months (we’re looking at you, House Of The Dragon and The Rings Of Power!), Willow doesn’t get caught up in tons of world building and stilted, accented dialogue that sometimes is hard for all but diehard fans to get through. Just like the original movie, the story of Willow is straightforward and accessible, with modern dialogue, fun characters and a very clear objective.
Essentially Willow is leading a ragtag group on a quest, a plot that’s not only classic but one that usually works well. Of course, it’s all dependent on the characters, and Kasdan does a good job of setting up who’s who before going on the quest. In some very efficient ways, we see what the relationships are, as well, like Kit kissing Jade or Sorsha going to the dungeon to have what looks like one of her regular chats with Thraxus. We also know how reluctant Graydon is to be a prince, much less go on this quest with his forced fiancee.
The show works better when the characters aren’t in battle. Like the original film, sometimes the bigger scenes, like effects-laden battles, are tough to follow. But when everyone’s interacting with each other and not trying to kill Gales or other enemies, the show takes off.
What we enjoyed about the first episode was the fact that none of the characters take themselves seriously, but not in a farcical way, like you might have seen in Galavant or Monty Python And The Holy Grail. Even characters as seemingly serious as Kase make asides that are very human, like when he says Arik is as close to a son as he’s ever had, but adds “as far as I know” to the end of that statement. It’s little things like that that bring the audience in, and get them to root for the characters, instead of holding them at arm’s length. As the quest continues, led by the always-affable Davis as Willow, we hope that sense of humor and warmth continues.
Sex and Skin: None in the first episode; all we see Arik and Dive do is kiss.
Parting Shot: Willow tells Dove about her real identity, and a puzzled Dove just goes, “What?”
Sleeper Star: We’ve seen Tony Revolori play roles like Graydon before; a guy who is underestimated, one who profiles as a beta male but is more alpha than people realize. We are looking forward to seeing just how many layers her has.
Most Pilot-y Line: Kase says “Out here, in the world beyond, if you are not vigilant at each moment, I swear you will not survive…” before taking an arrow in the chest. That was one of the more farcical moments in the episode, even though it took out a character we thought would last more than 2/3 of an hour.
Our Call: STREAM IT. Willow succeeds in the same way the movie its based on did, by creating characters who have layers but don’t take themselves completely seriously. It helps that the story and dialogue are accessible to fantasy nerds and plain old viewers alike.
Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.