‘Winx Club - The Magic is Back’ (2025) Netflix Series Review - Glitter, Gaps, and Glaring Mistakes

I’ll say this as gently as possible: Winx Club: The Magic Is Back is proof that not everything needs a comeback. Some things are better left as fuzzy memories on Saturday morning TV rather than dragged back in a new coat of CGI that looks like it was baked halfway and served cold. If the original Winx had energy, charm, and unapologetic sparkle, this revival mostly has awkward pacing, bland villains, and wings that flap harder than the writing.

The show kicks off with Bloom, an Earth teen who suddenly discovers she’s a fairy after a run-in with a monster. Cue magical rescue, immediate invitation to Alfea (the fairy school), and the forming of a group of girlfriends with special powers. If this sounds familiar, that’s because it’s the same outline as the original, except this time it’s been stripped of wit and whimsy and padded with filler episodes. Watching Bloom wander into her powers feels less like a hero’s journey and more like she accidentally subscribed to a 26-episode tutorial that keeps buffering.

Let’s talk about the animation, because you can’t ignore it. The switch to full CGI was supposed to make things “modern” and “fresh.” Instead, it makes everything look like a low-budget video game cutscene from 2011. Characters move stiffly, expressions glitch, and transformation sequences — which should be the show’s fireworks — often look like awkward PowerPoint transitions with sparkles added. The original 2D style had personality; this one has that plasticky sheen that screams “we blew the budget on one shot, and the rest is filler.”

The villains, oh the villains. Once upon a time, the Trix were iconic: stylish, menacing, entertaining. Here, they’re declawed and deflated. They posture, they threaten, they vanish, they reappear, and at no point do you actually fear them. They feel like your Wi-Fi connection when it cuts out: annoying, inconsistent, and more of a plot inconvenience than a real danger. Then there are the newer evil figures like Vexius and Damien, who carry the kind of mystery you’d expect if someone just wrote “villain goes here” in the script and forgot to follow up. Their schemes are so loosely drawn you could poke holes in them with a toothpick.

Character arcs? Paper-thin. With six fairies in the main lineup, you’d hope each gets depth. Instead, the story shoves Bloom in the spotlight so relentlessly that everyone else becomes a background accessory. Flora and Tecna may as well be decorative plants and calculators most of the time. Musa occasionally gets her “music girl” angle, Stella flirts with comic relief, and Aisha’s athleticism is a footnote. The writing gives them token emotional beats, but they’re so undercooked that it feels like the writers only remembered the side characters existed five minutes before deadline.

Tone is another mess. The show stumbles between sugary fairy fun and a half-hearted attempt at darkness. One minute you’re watching sparkly friendship banter, the next minute you’re slapped with an “edgy” plotline about lineage and betrayal that’s resolved in the most predictable way possible. It doesn’t balance whimsy and drama; it slams them together like mismatched puzzle pieces. The result is tonal whiplash too juvenile for older teens, too dour for younger kids, and too muddled for anyone looking for coherence.

And let’s not ignore pacing. The first couple of episodes at least set things up decently, but by episode five, the series is crawling. Plots repeat themselves, revelations are dragged out, and half the episodes feel like detours that lead nowhere. Instead of tightening the story, it bloats it, stuffing in magical side quests that feel more like procrastination than progression. By the time something major happens, you’re either too bored or too distracted to care.

Even Bloom’s supposed “Dark Bloom” arc, which could have been a bold swing, ends up toothless. Instead of showing complexity or moral conflict, it just ticks a box: “protagonist gets corrupted temporarily.” Blink and you’ll miss it. That’s the theme here: big setups with tiny payoffs.

The most insulting part is how hard the series leans on nostalgia without actually respecting it. It recycles old plotlines without the spark that made them work, drops in references as if that alone will keep longtime fans hooked, and expects you to applaud because the characters technically exist on screen. It’s like being handed a childhood toy that’s been repainted in garish colors and told, “See? Same thing!” No, it’s not.

And I haven’t even mentioned the dialogue, which often sounds like a bad dub written by someone who skimmed a “Teen Slang for Beginners” manual. Emotional scenes collapse under wooden exchanges, jokes rarely land, and dramatic confrontations play out like rehearsals that were never polished. The original may not have been Shakespeare, but it had rhythm and camp; this one has clunky sentences and flat delivery.

In the end, Winx Club: The Magic Is Back is proof that resurrection doesn’t guarantee life. The series takes the bones of a beloved franchise, dresses them in cheap CGI, sprinkles in half-baked drama, and calls it new. It isn’t new; it’s tired, stretched thin, and too insecure to commit to a tone. The fairies deserved better, the villains deserved sharper writing, and the audience deserved more than an extended reminder of why not every magical realm needs a reboot.

If you want to relive the magic, rewatch the old seasons. If you want to punish yourself with repetitive plots, hollow character arcs, and transformation scenes that look like a glitchy screensaver, then sure — this one’s for you. Otherwise, the only magic here is how quickly it makes your patience disappear.

Final Score- [2/10]
Reviewed by - Anjali Sharma
Follow @AnjaliS54769166 on Twitter
Publisher at Midgard Times