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Krull.
A fantastic tale of might and magic, of swords and lasers, of wizards and aliens, of people still trying to catch that Star Wars magic without the budget or the work.
Which is not to say it doesn't have its charms, it has many.
But you gotta be pretty forgiving.
This is the story of two rival kingdoms, uniting through the marriage of their respective prince and princess, both extremely good-looking and willful people, to fight the alien scourge that has come to rule their planet.
Lysette Anthony’s Lyssa, a direct spiritual descendent of Princess Leia without enough screen-time to prove it, is exactly the kind of strong woman I always fell for, even when I was a kid. The marriage is her idea, in defiance of her father, because she is the one in her family with the wisdom and courage to do what is necessary. But gets kidnapped by the Stormtroopers, erm, Slayers of Darth Vader, erm, The Beast, in the first ten minutes of the movie. So that the headstrong young hero can come and rescue her along with some fun sidekicks and a wise old mentor... wait a minute...
Ken Marshall's Colwyn is a somewhat less convincing, albeit good-looking in a skinny-legged way, hero when he's crying at the beginning of the movie but builds up some steam as things go along, particularly in a scene where he convinces a band of outlaws to join him and be his "army". He will lead his plucky band on a guerrilla raid of the evil ruler's fortress to rescue Princess Leia, erm, Lyssa... oh, come on!
Look, this movie is still pretty fun but Jesus is it practically like a cover-version of Star Wars with less money, vision, and technique.
Still, I am a generous man, so I enjoy what this movie did do enough to forgive it its (many) shortcomings. The shortcomings are a LOT of terrible blue-screens because they didn't have the budget to build all the fantastic sets they wanted, some other special/makeup effects that just aren't good enough for 1983, a pretty meandering plot that you just sort of go along for the ride on, some pretty spotty dialogue at times, and the general feeling that you have seen this movie before.
The strength is mostly some cool ideas. The whole Widow Of The Web bit is really pretty in concept and could be worse given the budget. The Cyclops who can see the future... but only the future of his own death, the Emerald Seer, the Changelings, Ergo, a sort of magician who can transform into animals, a pretty great group of bandits including Liam Neeson and Robbie Coltrane (who both get upstaged by a pretty excellent Alun Armstrong as the band's leader), and honestly, whatever the hell The Glaive is it's so cool I don’t really give a shit if the quest to get it is the lamest part of the movie that seems like filler and how Colwyn is able to master its magic immediately doesn't really make a lick of sense.
Ultimately, this is a movie that feels like it gets stuck in the middle between being an actually decent fantasy knock-off of Star Wars and a bad one. Which is a tough place to be. There are some fun parts to watch and some characters that work and by the end are actually pretty fun... but there’s a lot of "oof" in this movie. You really need to know that going in, particularly with regard to the effects, before you get to excited about this one.
Krull.
A fantastic tale of might and magic, of swords and lasers, of wizards and aliens, of people still trying to catch that Star Wars magic without the budget or the work.
Which is not to say it doesn't have its charms, it has many.
But you gotta be pretty forgiving.
This is the story of two rival kingdoms, uniting through the marriage of their respective prince and princess, both extremely good-looking and willful people, to fight the alien scourge that has come to rule their planet.
Lysette Anthony’s Lyssa, a direct spiritual descendent of Princess Leia without enough screen-time to prove it, is exactly the kind of strong woman I always fell for, even when I was a kid. The marriage is her idea, in defiance of her father, because she is the one in her family with the wisdom and courage to do what is necessary. But gets kidnapped by the Stormtroopers, erm, Slayers of Darth Vader, erm, The Beast, in the first ten minutes of the movie. So that the headstrong young hero can come and rescue her along with some fun sidekicks and a wise old mentor... wait a minute...
Ken Marshall's Colwyn is a somewhat less convincing, albeit good-looking in a skinny-legged way, hero when he's crying at the beginning of the movie but builds up some steam as things go along, particularly in a scene where he convinces a band of outlaws to join him and be his "army". He will lead his plucky band on a guerrilla raid of the evil ruler's fortress to rescue Princess Leia, erm, Lyssa... oh, come on!
Look, this movie is still pretty fun but Jesus is it practically like a cover-version of Star Wars with less money, vision, and technique.
Still, I am a generous man, so I enjoy what this movie did do enough to forgive it its (many) shortcomings. The shortcomings are a LOT of terrible blue-screens because they didn't have the budget to build all the fantastic sets they wanted, some other special/makeup effects that just aren't good enough for 1983, a pretty meandering plot that you just sort of go along for the ride on, some pretty spotty dialogue at times, and the general feeling that you have seen this movie before.
The strength is mostly some cool ideas. The whole Widow Of The Web bit is really pretty in concept and could be worse given the budget. The Cyclops who can see the future... but only the future of his own death, the Emerald Seer, the Changelings, Ergo, a sort of magician who can transform into animals, a pretty great group of bandits including Liam Neeson and Robbie Coltrane (who both get upstaged by a pretty excellent Alun Armstrong as the band's leader), and honestly, whatever the hell The Glaive is it's so cool I don’t really give a shit if the quest to get it is the lamest part of the movie that seems like filler and how Colwyn is able to master its magic immediately doesn't really make a lick of sense.
Ultimately, this is a movie that feels like it gets stuck in the middle between being an actually decent fantasy knock-off of Star Wars and a bad one. Which is a tough place to be. There are some fun parts to watch and some characters that work and by the end are actually pretty fun... but there’s a lot of "oof" in this movie. You really need to know that going in, particularly with regard to the effects, before you get to excited about this one.