Gremlins: Secrets of the Mogwai (2022– ) User Reviews

A fun, family series that's more intense than you may expect

[kevin_robbins · 8/10 · 8 July 2023]

Gremlins: Secrets of the Mogwai (2022) is a series that my daughter and I recently completed on MAX. The storyline follows a young boy in Shanghai who is gifted a Mogwai by his grandfather. Shortly after he gets it a sorcerer of sorts arrives and eats his grandfather whole and the boy barely escapes. The boy, now on the streets and an unlikely journey, will need to work with an untrustworthy orphaned girl he encounters and his Mogwai, named Gizmo, to uncover why the sorcerer wants the Mogwai so bad and stop him.

This series was cocreated by Stephanie Gonzaga (Duck Tales), Alexandra Chiu (Guardians of the Galaxy: Animated Series), Vaughn Ross (The Clone Wars) and Michael Chang (Teen Titans). This contains the voices of James Hong (Big Trouble in Little China), George Takei (Star Trek), Zach Galligan (Gremlins), Sandra Oh (Umma) and Gabrielle Nevaeh (Monster High).

This series was released with the launch of MAX and my daughter and I love the Gremlins movies...so we had to watch it. This series started a bit slow but by the end of episode 3 we were absolutely hooked. The animation is excellent and very well done. It reminded me of a Dreamworks project. The universe was fascinating and they did a good job telling an origin story that contained magic, new elements and aspects you know from the movies. When they incorporated hopping vampires from the martial arts movies my heart jumped a beat. I also loved the gods storylines and the family dynamics. There ends up being multiple villains in this that made the dynamics seem impossible to overcome. Our green gremlins friends were tremendous, hilarious, and I could watch their hijinks all day.

Overall, this was very well done by MAX and better than Velma. It was smart to involve Spielberg and Joe Dante in the making of this project. I would score this an 8/10 and recommend it as a fun, family series that's more intense than you may expect.

Little Sam wing is insufferable

[alexsimmons-77171 · 7/10 · 11 July 2023]

I will start this off by saying the only thing that made this show less than a 9 and that is, Little Sam Wing is simply, and at times, utterly INSUFFERABLE. He is just a kid and that is the obvious play here by the writers but Gahhh Dammmm!!!! How many times does he have to freeze up and how many times do they have to highlight his youth and his lack of courage and bravery.

Green is a great villain who seems to operate not only off of pure evil and maliciousness as much as his feelings of living in a world surrounded by people who lack his intelligence and leadership.although, he does completely enjoy being evil. He was great.

Elle is a good character with complexity.

And what would it be without gizmo and gremlins.

Would've given it a nine. However I find Sam Wing to be Insufferable.

Great Fun For the Entire Family!!!

[rushbrett · 7/10 · 2 August 2023]

I watched this series with my 4 year old son and we both had a blast watching it! That being said, of course Secrets of the Mogwai gets browning points for contributing to some bonding tome between me and my boy. This show maintains alot of that speilberg magic and fun that made the first film such a beloved staple in so many households. Many adults or even older children may be turned away as the animation style may come off as being to childish and truth be told these were my initial thoughts as well. I beg however, please do not let the look of this series turn you away from sitting down and just giving it a shot! It has the childish animation and fun characters that kids will love while also delving into more serious matters and having captivating character and story moments that will also keep the older generations invested. Secrets of the Mogwai is a series that I would recommend anyone gives a watch especially if your a fan of the gremlins and ESPECIALLY If you have little ones to watch it with!

Very Satisfying for Fans

[j_kurzyn · 10/10 · 23 May 2023]

As a huge Gremlin fan ever since I was a kid ( I had the novel and the story records), this series strikes a wonderful balance between expanding on the lore while paying fan service. The callbacks to the first two films are copious. I really enjoyed all the references and the actor doing Gizmo hits it on the head! I was a little worried this would have been dumbed down but I found myself invested about 2 minutes in. The animation is beautiful. I just wished they dropped all 10 at once.

Hopefully this will get the VIPs motivated to continue to expand the universe with another live action film (no CGI) or a live action series (again, no CGI please).

Faithful but forgets its potential new, younger audience a few times.

[andrewbrudenell1 · 7/10 · 6 November 2023]

This is a high quality and well made animated series that is respectful of the original films, while still moving the Gremlins franchise on in a creative way. The move away from the US setting and the plot points the two films essentially share is very well done. Characters are well rounded and likeable where they should be. It's a good mix of funny and dramatic and it's all richly animated.

I would have this scored as an 8 or a 9 if it weren't for a handful of jarring scenes and dialogue in the first half dozen episodes. The scene whereby a villain swallows (the soul?) of the protagonist's kindly Grandfather could have been done in a less visceral and disturbing way and it's followed up later with some dialogue that makes it worse. My 7 year old found it frightening but still enjoyed the series; I just needed to sit with him throughout the rest of the episodes as neither he nor I trusted it afterwards (with some justification). I get that the original films are not for younger children but the focus on the Mogwai and the way this is generally presented makes it appear that it was made for younger audiences too (which would make sense if they're wanting to reinvigorate a 30 year old franchise).

This is a good prequel to the Gremlins movies!

[whackamolewv · 10/10 · 9 June 2023]

Warning: If you haven't seen this show, then I recommend you read this review after, because this review will contain spoilers: I always enjoyed the Gremlins movies all because of Gizmo, and now I'm thankful this series came out! Thanks to Max for being the good streaming service that has this! I hope there'll be a third live-action Gremlins film soon. I'm looking forward to the future of this show. I'm curious to find out how it will end. We've been waiting on this show forever, and it's finally out! Now I'm getting with the spoilers: I like the fact they have Gizmo, Sam and Elle as a group because they're the perfect group in my opinion.

A perfect prequel to the Gremlins franchise

[ready_aimFIRE · 9/10 · 9 July 2023]

As a long time gremlins fan I was thoroughly impressed by how this show managed to capture the spirit of the original movies, while also adding tons of original content that now makes the gremlins universe feel so much more richer.

Each episode is well written and perfectly paced, there's lots of interesting Chinese mythology and creatures thrown in, and plenty of dark and gruesome moments to appease fans of the original movies. The main characters are great, I never feel like any of them are just standing around with nothing to do, each one has a goal that keeps you engaged and the plot moving forward. I especially enjoyed the villain for this show, who feels heavily inspired by classic Disney villains. In this day and age, it's nice to finally have an animated villain that actually enjoys being evil and having fun with it. And of course, the gremlins are lots of fun too.

The animation style isn't for everybody and this is perhaps my only nitpick for the show. I feel like it would have been received better had the creators gone in a different direction with the art. At first glance, it definitely looks like a show for little kids. But if you can get past it and give it a chance I'm sure you'll be pleasantly surprised. All in all, it's a perfect prequel to the Gremlins movies and I'm excited to see what the writers come up with next.

Sadly not for true fans of the movies

[slseed1969 · 4/10 · 4 July 2023]

I was hopeful I would be getting an interesting story showing the origins of the the Mogwai, but sadly this is just a dumbed down cartoon made for young kids. It doesn't honor the source material and makes up things like how Gizmo got his name (see the original 1984 film for the truth).

The style of the animation is nothing special, trying to mimic the trends of the last few years by using flat shading on cgi, made popular by the 2018 Spiderman film, but alot less successful.

Instead of playing off of the source material which was very much a dark comedy with an air of Chinese mysticism, you instead have a childish storyline with some magic thrown in just because. The main Gizmo Mogwai doesn't sound right and they don't even sing the famous melody taught to Billy by Giz correctly.

If you grew up in the 80s and loved the first two movies and were expecting something special here, just pass. This is just another example of a studio trying to leverage existing IP to milk more money out of it regardless of whether it would appeal to the ordinal audience or stay true to it.

rules are rules

[lee_eisenberg · 10/10 · 24 June 2023]

Fans of comedy-horror are bound to know Joe Dante's 1984 movie "Gremlins" and its 1990 sequel "Gremlins 2: The New Batch".* Well, we now have an origin story. The protagonist is Sam Wing, the owner of the shop from which the dad bought Gizmo in the first movie. "Gremlins: Secrets of the Mogwai" depicts him as a boy in 1920s Shanghai, coming into possession of Gizmo and having to protect him from a malevolent sorcerer.

As with the movies, the rules are to keep mogwai away from bright light, don't get them wet, and don't feed them after midnight; sure enough, the rules get broken, and chaos ensues. The miniseries manages to be fun every step of the way. You're sure to love it. Returning cast members from the movies are Zach Galligan (Billy in the movies, Henchman #2 here) and Haviland Morris (Marla in the second movie, Theodora here); Matthew Rhys (Riley) appeared in Steven Spielberg's movie "The Post" as the recently deceased Daniel Ellsberg.

*You may recall that the sequel depicted a mogul who was supposed to be Donald Trump (with a little bit of Ted Turner).

Decent first season

[popyoshi-36312 · 5/10 · 19 December 2023]

A decent season. This movie does a decent job of being a gremlins prequel, to me the biggest problem is the story, the story is very generic episodic childrens show, filled with a generic adventure with one big bad but many secondary bads throughout. With that being said, I like the animation, it's not the prettiest but I think it is more than serviceable I also do for the most part really enjoy the characters personalities, outside of a couple random people most characters are really enjoyable, likeable and interesting to watch. The gremlins are very similar to the original films, admittedly not quite as chaotic, but they definitely still do a good job portraying the gremlins. I think the show does have a bit too much of a reliance on magic but that's a small nitpick. Finally this show is a bit violent, but there isn't really any blood, just creepy bodily horror and non bloody mutilation, it's still surprisingly dark and accurate to the originals. If you like gremlins, or your kids to young to watch it this is a pretty good show for you.