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Wizards: Tales of Arcadia concludes a series I hadn’t heard of before seeing the trailer for this, but then a CGI animation for kids isn’t generally my bag. However, I saw this had the moniker of Guillermo Del Toro attached, so I thought I’d take a look.
Hirisdoux (Colin O’Donoghue), or Douxie to his friends, learns “Magic isn’t a permissible shortcut to hard work“, so there’s no chance of getting out of the cleaning up, at the cafe in which he works.
While out and about, he captures a shape-shifting shadow mephit, even though it escapes his trap. When he does finally capture it, it’s like a modern-day Ghostbusters trap creation, shooting from his wrist and down into the ground.
Meanwhile, his cat – or rather, “wizard’s associate”, Archie (Alfred Molina), talks to him, but when he bosses the lad about, Douxie confirms, “I will not be lectured by someone who licks his own butt!”
Along the way in the first episode, which is a mere 25 minutes, Jim (Emile Hirsch) ends up somewhat incapacitated, and Merlin (David Bradley – Deadwater Fell) previously created the Trollhunter amulet, which made him able to imprison the evil Morgana at the Battle of Killahead Bridge, but she’s now out and about as well.
There’s also travelling through time rifts, and overall, the CGI is good and will keep under 10s engaged, particularly, while adults will feel like they’ve seen it all before, but it has a fresh coat of paint.
Wizards: Tales of Arcadia is not available to pre-order on Blu-ray or DVD, but is on Netflix from today.
Episode 1 Score: 4/10
Director: Rebecca Goldberg
Producer: Guillermo del Toro
Writer/Creator: Guillermo del Toro
Music: Jeff Danna, John Fee
Cast:
Douxie: Colin O’Donoghue
Merlin: David Bradley
Archie: Alfred Molina
Green Knight: James Faulkner
Blinky: Kelsey Grammer
Jim: Emile Hirsch
Claire: Lexi Medrano
Steve: Steven Yeun
Nari: Angel Lin
Skrael: Piotr Michael
Sir Lancelot: Rupert Penry-Jones
Old Galahad: John Rhys-Davies
Toby: Charlie Saxton
AAARRRGGHH!!!: Fred Tatasciore
Goblins: Frank Welker
Additional voices: Steve Alterman, Joanna Leeds, Mitch Carter, Warren Sroka, Julie Falls
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.