[6.7/10] “The Haunted Village” has its highpoints. The montegrue is sufficiently frightening, and the scenes of Morag insisting that the winged beast due her bidding have a spooky cool factor to them. As defense mechanisms go, the whole Ewok community banding together to scrub their sustenance-providing trees with magic invisibility soap is a little out there, but provides a solid goal for our little furry heroes. Hell, even watching Wicket come up with a last minute solution to hide the remaining trees from the dragon/pterodactyl involves a bit of a thrill.
But god, the shenanigans with the Dulocks are grating. There’s a weird tonal imbalance here, with the grave threat of the montegrue paired with the goofy threat of the Dulocks. Efforts to steal soap, or harangue the village while invisible, or play keep away with the magical bar paly like garden variety slapstick and lack anything particularly special. The invisibility factor ought to add something to the proceedings, but beyond some of the Ewoks foolishly fearing angry tree spirits right after they’ve been using magical invisibility soap, it doesn’t make much of a difference.
The only saving grace is that some of the animation is legitimately good. The Dulocks have scruffy, Seussian designs, and watching them climb or gesticulate lends them a certain character. Otherwise, this is a marked drop-off in quality from the series premiere.
Review by Andrew BloomVIP 9BlockedParentSpoilers2022-04-15T21:36:53Z
[6.7/10] “The Haunted Village” has its highpoints. The montegrue is sufficiently frightening, and the scenes of Morag insisting that the winged beast due her bidding have a spooky cool factor to them. As defense mechanisms go, the whole Ewok community banding together to scrub their sustenance-providing trees with magic invisibility soap is a little out there, but provides a solid goal for our little furry heroes. Hell, even watching Wicket come up with a last minute solution to hide the remaining trees from the dragon/pterodactyl involves a bit of a thrill.
But god, the shenanigans with the Dulocks are grating. There’s a weird tonal imbalance here, with the grave threat of the montegrue paired with the goofy threat of the Dulocks. Efforts to steal soap, or harangue the village while invisible, or play keep away with the magical bar paly like garden variety slapstick and lack anything particularly special. The invisibility factor ought to add something to the proceedings, but beyond some of the Ewoks foolishly fearing angry tree spirits right after they’ve been using magical invisibility soap, it doesn’t make much of a difference.
The only saving grace is that some of the animation is legitimately good. The Dulocks have scruffy, Seussian designs, and watching them climb or gesticulate lends them a certain character. Otherwise, this is a marked drop-off in quality from the series premiere.