'Wednesday' teen dramedy, 'Willow' captures charm

'Wednesday' on Netflix

"Wednesday Addams attends Hogwarts" is such a stupidly obvious idea for the next young adult horror dramedy franchise that I'm amazed it wasn't rolled out sooner.

Ditto hiring Tim Burton as one of the streaming series' directors and executive producers, especially when you remember that this is Burton's first real involvement with the Addams Family, beyond a planned stop-motion film that was announced in 2010 but never developed.

Both 1991's "The Addams Family" and 1993's "Addams Family Values" were directed by Barry Sonnenfeld, who went on to direct all three Will Smith-starring "Men in Black" films.

Yes, Burton made ignorant comments about diversity in casting in a 2016 interview, but the silver lining is Burton's creative partners ensured the actors appearing in "Wednesday" are far less monochromatic than the show's color palette.

The most notable example is the recasting of the Addams Family itself as entirely Latinx, which gives us the perfect casting of Luis Guzmán as Gomez, Catherine Zeta-Jones as Morticia, Fred Armisen of "Saturday Night Live" and "Portlandia" as Uncle Fester, and Jenna Ortega as Wednesday, whose adolescent self resembles MTV's Daria Morgendorffer gone gothic.

Wednesday is expelled from Nancy Reagan High School after dumping live piranhas in the pool occupied by her brother Pugsley's jock bullies, leading her parents to send her to their old New England boarding school, the Nevermore Academy for "outcasts," which includes werewolves, vampires, sirens and gorgons.

Wednesday's coldly misanthropic attitude makes it difficult for her classmates to connect with her, while her morbid curiosity leads her to investigate the unsolved collection of deaths that all the adult authority figures at her new home - from her principal (Gwendoline Christie, in another dynamite dishy performance) to the neighboring town's sheriff and mayor - want to bury.

Cute touches include the sirens running the school glee club, and former Wednesday Addams actress Christina Ricci in a key role.

Although its antecedents include "Harry Potter," "Twilight" and arguably "Twin Peaks," I'm surprised there's not a TV tropes entry for the specific subgenre of attractive teens wallow in relationship angst, and solve murder mysteries, in a world where the supernatural coexists with the mundane, with enough low-key tension for the characters themselves to comment on it.

Whatever it's called, I'm along for the ride, and I hope "Wednesday" secures a second season.

'Willow' on Disney+

The original 1988 film "Willow," directed by Ron Howard from a story by George Lucas, was an earnestly stout-hearted neo-medieval swords-and-

sorcery fable in the J.R.R. Tolkien mold, but its charms remain subtle enough that it's challenging to recommend and to recreate.

"Willow" is by no means a transformatively metafictional work within its genre, unlike the more openly subversive storytelling of "The Princess Bride," but it never quite plays straight with its audiences' expectations either.

Like Val Kilmer's arrogant yet accomplished swashbuckler Madmartigan, the film is equally impressive for the intricate tricks it manages to execute and for allowing its characters to land unflatteringly on their backsides.

I say this to assure fellow fans of the understated flavor of the original "Willow" that its follow-up series on Disney+ has recaptured that nuanced tone.

Joanne Whalley has aged gracefully into the role of Tir Asleen's benevolent Queen Sorsha, reformed daughter of the wicked Bavmorda, but no one seems to know the whereabouts of her husband Madmartigan, including the couple's nearly adult children, the formidable, fiercely competitive warrior princess Kit (Ruby Cruz), and her cocky Lothario of a twin brother, the people-pleasing but less-than-reliable prince Airk (Dempsey Bryk).

Sorsha seeks to unite Tir Asleen with the kingdom of Galladoorn through an arranged marriage between Kit and the bookish prince Graydon (Tony Revolori, aka "Flash" Thompson from the MCU Spider-Man films), but the identity of Kit's true love might surprise you.

Another break from tradition comes when Sorsha's castle is invaded by the evil Gales - basically Thanos' Black Order for the "Willow" universe - and they choose which of her children to kidnap for their sinister mistress, "The Withered Crone."

A makeshift fellowship is dispatched to rescue the kidnapped twin by recruiting the aid of Willow - now the last known living sorcerer, even in the realms beyond Tir Asleen - but his village has literally gone underground to escape the notice of the evil he's long warned is approaching.

Even as his village's High Aldwin, Willow finds himself failing to either inspire his own people or reawaken the magical abilities of the young woman he's convinced is the missing Elora Danan, the former infant prophesied to become the future empress and protector of Tir Asleen.

Warwick Davis remains endearing and relatable as Willow Ufgood, and the flashbacks of Willow and Sorsha not only use seamless de-aging CGI, but also show how even the most well-meaning disagreements can sunder a friendship.

I love that magic within the "Willow" universe is still difficult to wield, enough that much of what gets called "magic" is merely wisdom and/or misdirection, and I'm compelled by the possibilities suggested by Willow declaring that our adventurers' end destination lies beyond the boundaries of their world, so I'm on board for the full duration of this trek as well.

'Andor' on Disney+

"Andor" recently wrapped up its 12-episode first season on Disney+. If you haven't watched "Andor" or you quit watching after the first three glacially paced episodes, you're missing some of the best "Star Wars" ever made.

No Jedi. No Sith. No Force. No lightsabers. None of the fantastical aspects of the mythos that make it anathema to those who have historically dismissed "Star Wars," because they prefer hard-SF.

What do we get instead? Mutually mistrusting mercenaries using awe-inspiring astronomical phenomena to pull off ambitious currency heists to fund the nascent Rebellion. Ideological conflicts between almost irreconcilably divided factions of Rebels that will yield life-or-death consequences regardless of whose plans are enacted. And the terrifying banality of evil at work within the Empire's bureaucracy, with its career-driven internecine treachery.

The spectrum of fascists are represented by Anton Lesser's briskly Darwinian head officer of the Imperial Security Bureau, Denise Gough as ruthlessly efficient and ambitious ISB supervisor Dedra Meero, Kyle Soller as demoted but obsessively driven and creepy Imperial patriot Syril Karn, and Alex Ferns as Karn's tragically loyal one-time sergeant, Linus Mosk.

Genevieve O'Reilly transforms original trilogy placeholder Mon Mothma into a heartbreaking and fully realized character, by showing her striving to do right in spite of an indifferent Senate, a dilettante husband and a defiant daughter who's embracing regressive traditions to spite her politically active mother.

And if you watch nothing else, you must take in the three key speeches of "Andor:"

■ Andy Serkis as Imperial prisoner Kino Loy, urging his fellow inmates to take the "One Way Out" to freedom from endless enforced labor.

■ Stellan Skarsgård as Rebel spymaster Luthen Rael, spelling out exactly how much of his own humanity he's sacrificed for the Rebellion.

■ And Fiona Shaw as working-class hero Maarva Andor, who uses the holographic recording to be played at her funeral to call for her fellow blue-collar workers to "Fight the Empire!"

If you can watch any of those speeches without moist eyes or a swelling lump in your throat, you have no soul, and if "Andor" doesn't get Emmy nominations for them, the system is rigged.

Author Bio

Kirk Boxleitner, Reporter

Shelton-Mason County Journal & Belfair Herald
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