Review Day

There are no major spoilers in these reviews.

Encanto (PG):
Disney's latest animated movie tells of a Colombian family where every person has a magical power except the protagonist. The movie is pleasant and the music is clearly in Lin-Manuel Miranda's style. The rapid patter style is fun, but makes it much harder to learn the lyrics or relate the words to what's going on in every color-packed fast-cut scene. We finally let Maia watch it because some of her school friends had seen it. Her favorite character is Isabella, although she requested that we skip some "sad" parts towards the end. On Disney+.

Final Grade: B

Onward:
Onward is a recent (pandemic era) Pixar movie of two elves that go on a quest so they can spend a single day with their dead dad. I actually enjoyed this a little more than Encanto as it weaves D&D / Warcraft influences into a road trip movie. We will probably let Maia watch this once she's watched Encanto another 100 times. On Disney+.

Final Grade: B+

Dexter: New Blood:
The Dexter series puttered out with a horrible ending almost 10 years ago and, based on the fact that this is a continuation, it's no longer a spoiler to reveal that Dexter is still alive. I watched the first episode of this new season for free on Amazon Prime Video but found nothing intriguing that would make me want to continue with the rest of the season. Online reviews suggest that this season provides a better final wrap-up than the original series finale, but that is a very low bar, and not worth my money. On Amazon Video.

Final Grade: Not Rated

The Witcher, Season 2:
I gave the first season of this show a C- and only started the second season because there was nothing else new worth watching. I gave up after two episodes -- beyond some cool special effects and horror imagery, there's nothing in any of the parallel stories that pique my interest. On Netflix.

Final Grade: Not Rated