owen-watts

For various reasons I've found myself re-watching this multiple times in the last decade and enjoying it hugely each time. It's gawky, it's awkward, bits of it are cartoonishly clunky but it's so damned charming it just walks it. Definitely feels like a script that was bounced around for years and is tight as hell for all that. The effects still look pretty good and it's fairly evocative, not just of the fifties but of the eighties too. The finale, however many times you watch it, is still overwhelmingly tense which feels like an achievement in of itself. Deserving of its reputation.

A fairly unreconstructed elevator sketch for "What If Goonies and Stranger Things... but Star Wars?" however it's a solid formula for whatever reason and apart from the standard 2020s TV "perfunctory rambling asides" (trademark pending) it's a gorgeous looking, consistent and well-cast modern SW series with some solid characterization, a good meaty central adventure plot with plentiful dark bits for younger viewers to get their teeth into. Jude Law is particularly strong as Jod who manages to grapple with being a genuinely neutral feeling character which is really great in a kid's thing. Shame nobody actually watched or seems to remember this.

Cunk means consistency and her schtick is still evergreen here with the rolling meta gags and her perpetually frustrated experts, heavily briefed as they inevitably are. Morgan's speed and delivery is the absolute core of this and each time she rolls around it's a seriously fun treat, perpetually silly.