The nostalgia police are out in full force to bash this show but it's actually brilliant. The people who rate it poorly will almost never be satisfied with a remake because their memories of the classics are all viewed through rose colored lenses. People were right about the Willow series, which actually was an unwatchable disaster, but the harsh critics are wrong about this. I have great respect for the integrity of IMDB ratings. I use them to filter out all of the garbage, so if people are going to gang up to distort the quality of a show I'm going to defend it!
Taika Waititi was the best possible choice (other than Terry Gilliam himself, who's now 83) to make this adaptation. His humor is dry and witty but still appropriate for kids 10+. This is not one of his second-rate shows where you can tell he was a passive force in production. It's obvious he's a fan of the original and that he put effort into making this not just entertaining, but also insightful and even a bit educational in that it reveals the all-too-beautifully-flawed humanity of our predecessors throughout history.
The whole family will be laughing out loud at the same jokes, which is not easy to achieve. It requires a bit of wit, whereas so much humor these days takes the easy route of shock or vulgarity for adults or overuse of clichés and/or slapstick for kids. Some parts might be a little scary for younger kids (which is true to the original) but our 12 year old is thoroughly enjoying it.
Kevin was cast well. He'll be relatable to kids who don't fit the popularity mold and prefer reading and utilizing their imagination to climbing the middle school social ladder. Jemaine Clement is amazing in the roll of Wrongness... absolutely hilarious! Waititi is also fantastic in the role of the Supreme Being. The bandits may be of different proportions from those featured in the 80s but that has absolutely no bearing on the quality of their chemistry, and I think Lisa Kudrow does a fine job as well and is funny in her own right.
Our family struggles with a lack of family shows that are entertaining for both kids and adults. We usually end up in some kind of compromise where one or the other party is enjoying the show while the other one sort of loses interest and ends up looking at their phone. This show is one of the rare gems that will have the whole family sharing laughs and wanting more.
