Cast:
Tom Cruise (Jack), Mia Sara (Lili), Tim Curry (Darkness), David Bennent (Honeythorn Gump; voiced by Alice Playten), Alice Playten (Blix), Billy Barty (Screwball), Cork Hubbert (Brown Tom), Peter O'Farrell (Pox), Kiran Shah (Blunder), Tina Martin (Nell), Robert Picardo (Meg Mucklebones), and Annabelle Lanyon (Oona) Directed by Ridley Scott (#100 - Blade Runner, #530 - Alien, #739 - The Martian, #1076 - Thelma & Louise, #1524 - Gladiator, #1879 - The Last Duel)
Review:
"I could have taken this script and gone two ways. One would have been dark and Celtic, which would have limited it. The other was the Disney route, and as I made Legend primarily for children, my children to be precise, that’s the avenue I pursued. Having visual references to Snow White, Fantasia and especially Pinocchio were clear cut decisions by me."
Once upon a time, you really could just flop around with a fantasy movie. Ridley Scott's fourth feature film was a dark fantasy movie that he had been cultivating for years. He actually conceived the idea when filming The Duellists (1977) because his plans to do a movie on the medieval legend Tristan & Isolde fell through. However, he went with doing Alien (1979) because of his belief in a lack of audience appeal for Legend. After his time spent developing Dune saw him drop out, Scott went back to that fairy tale project that took inspirations from the Brothers Grimm. Scott met American novelist William Hjortsberg (writer of books such as Falling Angel [1978] and one other screenplay with Thunder and Lightning [1977]). and interested him into writing a fairy tale. Their shared appreciation of Jean Cocteau's Beauty and the Beast (1946) based their working relationship. The script was worked out from a rough storyline by 1981 into further revisions over the years before shooting began in 1984. There exist three cuts (complete with modified endings) of the movie because of audience perceptions. The first cut was 125 minutes long before Scott trimmed it to 113 minutes long for testing in America....that was apparently too long for folks to be entertained by, which saw over 20 minutes trimmed (such as the clockmaker's cottage sequence) to go with replacing the music score by Jerry Goldsmith for music by Tangerine Dream, Jon Anderson, and Bryan Ferry. International audiences in 1985 saw a 93-minute film while American audiences in 1986 saw an 89-minute film that was a flop with audiences, but at least Rob Bottin got an Academy Award nomination for his makeup on the film. In 2002, home video saw the release of a 113-minute Director's Cut that restored cut sequences and the Goldsmith score (which is what I saw; also, for whatever reason, there is a site detailing the road to getting the DVD there). Scott never has returned to the world of fantasy since, although obviously he continued directing, with his next movie being Someone to Watch Over Me (1987).
Part of me can't help but wonder why I found this to be a very, very, very average movie to experience despite the visual interest. For what it's worth, you are reading words from someone who had to look back to recall that I seemed to like Krull (1983) a bit better than Willow (1988). With Legend, you get a bit of a fever dream. It takes a hell of time to really get going but is at least held up with one notable presence to make its strange whims worth a trip, mainly because I can't find myself hating where it all ended up. It goes to the inevitable places that come with big red creatures and attempts at showing an adventure of light and darkness that may very well be fascinating for all of the right and wrong reasons possible, whether one finds themselves in the cult classic argument or not. Is it too murky? Maybe, but I go with murky. It's funny to cast two actors on dueling sides of getting to be known better. You've got Cruise just two years removed from Risky Business [1983] while Sara (five years younger than Cruise, I might add) made her debut before appearing in Ferris Bueller's Day Off [1986]...and then there's Curry being cast because of his film and theatrical experience.* Cruise is probably a bit too green to really make this role anything more than a middling hero (apparently it inspired him to suggest input for his next project with Top Gun [1986]), but his shakiness is somewhat palatable to watch. Sara fares better, mostly because she gets to play with the definition of innocence with the whole other getup worn around the climax. Sure, the chemistry between the two leads is shaky, but we are talking about folks in a strange unnamed land that go around throwing rings in water. I cannot imagine the time spent wearing makeup and iron frame lifts for Curry. But it sure seemed worth it with such a tremendous presence captured here. He oozes a certain type of devilish curiosity that really does seduce one into finding solace in shadows that makes the best type of threat: booming and a great threat in the eyes of eternity. It is kind of curious to have one person voice two characters (Bennent was dubbed over because of his accent), but I like the distinct levels of mischief played in voice/physical performance anyways, so I guess they got me there to accept that one talks in a handful of rhymes. Well, at least the movie is sometimes funny with people such as Barty and Picardo, at least. Its buildup to the big finish (well, a finish, because light, darkness, yeah, get it?) proves to be worth the journey in fun, and saying "oh but the cliche of good vs. evil" seems easy to then say "hey, I like some of those good defeating evil movies". In the end, it basically is the kind of movie you either "hum" with or you just let go by the wayside, but it has a sort of energy to me that I liked enough to accept on its own terms and find worthy to recommend with an open mind, at least.
Overall, I give it 7 out of 10 stars.
*See, at least one good thing came from the overrated The Rocky Horror Picture Show, because Scott watched the movie in thinking about casting Richard O'Brien to play the role later played by Robert Picardo. Also, did I miss anything in the last three weeks?
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