The new Willow provides some rich fantasy storytelling, but it loses the message of the original film along the way.
A sequel to 1988’s swords and sorcery film Willow has long been talked about – both star Warwick Davis, who played the title character of the aspiring sorcerer Willow, and director Ron Howard have been keen to see the story continue. Now that sequel has finally arrived in series format on Disney+. Like all legacy sequels, it tries to find the balance between returning to familiar territory and introducing new things, particularly young lead characters and new villains.
Having seen seven of the eight episodes, Willow’s success in that regard is mixed. It provides spectacular visuals, rich fantasy worldbuilding and interesting character arcs, but with a side of teenage drama that it often gets bogged down in.
For the sake of fans old and new, the series wastes no time in getting its audience up to speed. Introductory narration by Sorsha (with Joanne Whalley returning to the role) reminds us of the events of Willow, where Davis’ Nelwyn farmer Willow Ufgood is tasked with protecting a human baby named Elora Danan, who’s prophesied to have great magical powers and to become the future Empress of the realm.
It also covers what’s happened between the film and the series, with Willow experiencing a vision of a new evil rising up to kill Elora, who’s now a young woman. As a result, she’s in hiding and even she doesn’t know her true identity. It feels like a fairly lengthy introduction, but it does establish an intriguing mystery to draw us in.
Throughout the course of the first episode we meet the main protagonists – royal siblings Kit (Ruby Cruz) and Airk (Dempsey Bryk) are the children of Sorsha and Madmartigan (played in the film by Val Kilmer, who was unable to return for the show). Kit is to be reluctantly married to the Prince of a nearby kingdom, Graydon (Tony Revolori, doing an excellent job at being rather snooty), and Kit’s best friend Jade (Erin Kellyman) is an aspiring knight. Airk spends his time rolling around in the hay with kitchen maid Dove (Ellie Bamber), and finally there’s Boorman (a charismatic Amar Chadha-Patel), a thief with a mysterious past.
Yes, they go on a quest. The word “fellowship” is even used. This series may not be original, but it is entertaining.
Between these introductions, we get a lot of great fantasy worldbuilding, with the politics of the two neighbouring kingdoms described in a way that’s breezy and not too cumbersome. The production design is also fantastic, with the sets, props and costumes all incredibly detailed.
So is the design of one of the show’s main villains – The Gales (who work for The Crone). We first see them when they arrive to kidnap Airk, thus kicking off a grand quest to rescue him. An impressive amount of The Gales costumes appear to be made up of practical effects, and their design is bold and frightening. The combat in their initial scene and throughout the series is also well-choreographed and exciting, but as the show progresses they’re often disappointingly swapped out for lesser minions.
Which brings us to the quest itself. Over the course of the show the group slowly gains ground as they approach the mysterious place where Airk is being kept, and they learn a lot about themselves along the way. In addition to the main quest, each episode tends to include an important subplot that’s linked to a character’s backstory. While the development of the characters is interesting and their arcs are often unexpected, the structure of each episode does start to become predictable.
As their stories progress, particular members of the cast begin to stand out. Tony Revolori gets to show a lot of range as Graydon and ends up being perhaps the most complex member of the party. Equally, there are a lot of characters who are extremely annoying. Kit is entitled and childish, and she and Dove are constantly squabbling. In the middle of all this, Warwick Davis seems to be enjoying himself as Willow. However, the character is saddled with an awful lot of exposition, and Davis’ dialogue suffers as a result.
Despite this, Willow is on the whole a very fun watch. It’s epic in scale, with excellent visual effects and beautiful locations. It feels like a grand fantasy adventure.
The only really sad thing about it is it seems to have forgotten the message at the heart of its predecessor – that anyone can do great things. With a central cast filled largely with royalty who are also related to the characters of the film, the show is lacking the underdog narrative that made the film so charming.
Willow may have found a good balance between familiar elements and new, interesting characters, but it’s lost part of its spirit along the way.
The first episode of Willow is streaming now on Disney+.
—
Thank you for visiting! If you’d like to support our attempts to make a non-clickbaity movie website:
Follow Film Stories on Twitter here, and on Facebook here.
Buy our Film Stories and Film Junior print magazines here.
Become a Patron here.
