Weekly Streaming Recap: Week of January 13th, 2023

Willow Season Finale (Disney+): The finale of Willow is probably the strongest episode, however considering how lackluster the show has been up until this point, that’s not exactly a selling point. There are dialogue problems where there are exchanges that do not feel like they match the world this show is set in and the magic fights at the end of the episode don’t feel up to contemporary standards. There is a lot to be said about Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore, however one of those things is not that the fights are boring. That’s because the movie builds on two prior Fantastic Beasts movies and eight prior Harry Potter movies and the choreography has developed a cadence and appearance that can engage a viewer, even if the circumstances leading up to the fight are questionable at best. Willow tries to do its own thing; however this is obviously a misplay that leads to a lengthy boring action sequence.

The Bad Batch Season 2 Episode 3 (Disney+): For those who may not follow Star Wars as closely as others, Commander Cody, the focal point of this week’s episode, was the Clone Commander that accompanied Obi-Wan to Utapau to engage with General Grievous’ troops in Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith. This is relevant because the episode decides to take up the continued question about why the Empire switched from an army of clones to an army of willing conscripts. This latest wrinkle has a ton of story and emotional opportunity considering what Cody did during Order 66 that the rest of the titular team did not do and even Rex did during the finale of The Clone Wars. Cody explicitly turned on Obi-Wan and, at this point to the eyes of the galaxy (see E.K. Johnston’s Queen’s Peril) Obi-Wan is dead along with the rest of the Jedi Order. This will be the first time that viewers will get to see what happens when a clone is forced to face the realities of what happened when their programming was activated outside their control. Beyond that, the expansion of the explanation of how the transition from the Clone Wars to galactic peace continues to be interesting.

National Treasure: Edge of History Episode 6 (Disney+): Who would have thought the bad guy since episode one was actually the bad guy? It feels like an hour-long detour to get very little information while plugging both Marvel Studios with a lengthy Captain America: The Winter Soldier analogy and Lucasfilm with a very strange reference to one of the most infamous lines from Attack of the Clones. That said, the way that Jess figures out Billie is lying to her (besides everything about Billie’s character signaling to anyone with two brain cells to rub together that she’s basically a Bond villain) is pretty smart and is interesting to watch play out.

Velma Episodes 1 and 2 (HBOMax): Velma might be the worst adult animation shows ever made. It’s obviously an attempt to do to Scooby-Doo what Harley Quinn did for Batman and his rogues gallery. It’s not funny, doesn’t make any unique observations about the characters, and is too meta for its own good. Velma as a character is too aloof and detached from the events to make the show work in a meaningful way making it where Velma is semi-aware she is in a television show but not in an endearing way.

The Last of Us Episode 1 (HBOMax): To say that The Last of Us has broken the video game adaptation curse is a bit of a misrepresentation of reality. Between Pokemon: Detective Pikachu, Sonic the Hedgehog, and Sonic the Hedgehog 2 there have been a solid number of great video game adaptations over the last few years. That’s not to say that The Last of Us is not great and above and beyond what one would expect from the zombie apocalyptic subgenre, however the show is already building on a fantastic narrative in the form of the original PlayStation 3 game. The story does follow pretty close to the original (full disclosure, I played the game almost a decade ago and my recollection is a little fuzzy) however the key narrative change is when the reveal around Ellie’s importance happens here when in the game it happens further down the line. This reveal happening as early as it does can have the unintended effect of laying out where the plot is going to go beyond this episode, though maybe that could just be with the benefit of hindsight knowing where the plot is (likely if they continue to hone closely to the game) going.

This Week In Theaters:

Missing: Acting as a standalone sequel to 2018’s Searching, Missing follows June’s (Storm Reid) search for her mother (Nia Long) after she goes missing while on vacation with her boyfriend (Ken Leung). Like it’s predecessor, this movie will be told entirely through screen recording, be they smart phones or computer screens which makes for an interesting viewing experience.

Alice, Darling: Mary Nighy makes her directorial debut with Alice, Darling, a psychological thriller that features Anna Kendrick as the titular Alice who is trying to break out of a codependent and psychologically abusive relationship with her boyfriend.

Last Week At The Box Office:

Avatar: The Way of Water: $31.1 Million

M3gan: $17.9 Million

Puss in Boots: The Last Wish: $13.4 Million

A Man Called Otto: $12.5 Million

Plane: $10.0 Million

Programming Notes:

Two HBOMax programming notes: Since Doom Patrol ended last week, filling the Thursday release slot will be Velma for the next nine weeks. While The Last of Us is being released on HBOMax, this is a simulcast with the regular release on HBO so the release is not on the standard Thursday for HBOMax but is instead on the normal HBO release date of Sunday.