In this era of particularly craven IP mining, trading on particularly grotesque bouts of seemingly incurable nostalgia, it’s a wonder that a couple of major Amblin-produced classics from the mid-1980s, Back to the Future and Gremlins, have managed to escape any major big-screen revival since their sequels ran out in 1990.
The closest thing to Back to the Future Part IV was either a theme-park ride, a video game, or a short-lived Saturday morning cartoon; now an animated approximation of Gremlins 3 arrives on HBO’s newly rechristened streaming service Max. Gremlins: Secrets of the Mogwai isn’t exactly like the cheesy Saturday morning brand-extensions of old, but it’s a refreshingly kid-friendly offshoot – a fun bit of ancillary material for older fans and (presumably) their offspring that doesn’t get too self-serious about (gag) the Gremlins mythology. In fact, one of the best things about Secrets of the Mogwai is the way that mythology weaves Gremlins backstory in with a bunch of other folklore.
