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cimoreneContinuing to watch silly 1980s movies that I missed, we watched Legend (1985) last night. I definitely understand why it did not become a deathless classic and influenced the later fantasy movie genre mainly via like... visuals. Like matte paintings.
This movie sort of reminds me of Guillermo del Toro, but it's like a Guillermo del Toro movie made by a music video director, because the developments of the plot are disjointed and it has no sense of pacing whatsoever. There's a little cast of comic side characters who repeatedly appear for extremely boring by-play amongst themselves, and these scenes are like the scenes in a Shakespeare comedy with the clowns, EXCEPT that in Legend they aren't funny at all, and don't even contain any jokes or innuendos. They definitely aren't clever and there is zero wordplay. Nothing about Legend is clever. Legend doesn't waste any time on backstories or exposition, which in a way is probably a plus, but also means that the romantic leads are already in love before the movie starts apparently, and we never learn anything about their background, their history, their parents, or their circumstances - not even their future in fact.
This is a Ridley Scott film starring a very young Tom Cruise with visible connecting sprouts between his eyebrows, playing a kind of wild inexplicably Mowgli-like forest-dwelling boy who frolics around in a loincloth and is the bestest friend of a princess in a very renfaire dress with a dim antecedent somewhere in the 14th-15th centuries, and she apparently sneaks into the forest to hang out with him and also with a woodsman's wife in a little forest cottage surrounded by chickens and goats, but the woodsman's wife could not be more clearly 16th century and also has literally no bearing on the plot.
The plot is just that an 8'-tall red Tim Curry with giant ox horns and hooves (sort of Hellboy meets The Mask except red, but a faun) lives in a cave under the forest attended by goblin servants and goes by the name The Darkness and apparently is the son... of Satan...? but can be killed by sunlight like a vampire, so plots to kill the last two unicorns which apparently are all that have kept the sun rising all this time (who knew?). He sends goblins who shoot the second to last unicorn while it's sniffing the princess's hand (what princess? good question! we know that she's friends with Tom Cruise and the woodsman's wife, and that's it), and she just has time to agree with Tom Cruise that they love each other and probably want to get married before the unicorn's death plunges the forest into a magical frozen winter in which the people in the woodsman's cottage are all frozen but the princess and Jack aren't for no reason. They rush off to investigate, are separated, and the princess gets scooped up accidentally by the goblins capturing the last unicorn, so Tim Curry has the chance to accidentally become infatuated with her. He is instructed by Satan via Zoom call that he is fascinated because her heart is pure and the correct procedure is to lure her to the dark side, which he does by sneakily offering her a silver tea service, a diamond necklace, and a glittery black goth dress, the last of which appears to her on a faceless dancer in an honest to god black glitter gimp suit and waltzes with her until she somehow magically consents to wear it.
Meanwhile Mowgli Cruise, with the aid of an obvious Puck knockoff named Gump, an obvious Tinkerbell knockoff named Oona, and two bumbling bulb-nosed fairies who look exactly like dwarves right down to the beards, outfits himself in magical fairy armor with a magical fairy sword, gets kidnapped by the goblins, rigs up a series of mirrors to beam sunlight into the cave, and then attacks Tim Curry right after the princess, who obtained a sword by pretending she wanted to be the Queen of Darkness and asking to kill the unicorn, frees it by breaking the single chain holding it with a single blow from the sword. There's a fight and eventually the doors open and Tim Curry is struck by reflected light and dies, and for some reason the princess is enchanted unconscious but Tom Cruise simply returns her own ring to her and wakes her with true love's kiss and they walk into the sunset after waving goodbye to the fairies for what feels like about five minutes.
This movie sort of reminds me of Guillermo del Toro, but it's like a Guillermo del Toro movie made by a music video director, because the developments of the plot are disjointed and it has no sense of pacing whatsoever. There's a little cast of comic side characters who repeatedly appear for extremely boring by-play amongst themselves, and these scenes are like the scenes in a Shakespeare comedy with the clowns, EXCEPT that in Legend they aren't funny at all, and don't even contain any jokes or innuendos. They definitely aren't clever and there is zero wordplay. Nothing about Legend is clever. Legend doesn't waste any time on backstories or exposition, which in a way is probably a plus, but also means that the romantic leads are already in love before the movie starts apparently, and we never learn anything about their background, their history, their parents, or their circumstances - not even their future in fact.
This is a Ridley Scott film starring a very young Tom Cruise with visible connecting sprouts between his eyebrows, playing a kind of wild inexplicably Mowgli-like forest-dwelling boy who frolics around in a loincloth and is the bestest friend of a princess in a very renfaire dress with a dim antecedent somewhere in the 14th-15th centuries, and she apparently sneaks into the forest to hang out with him and also with a woodsman's wife in a little forest cottage surrounded by chickens and goats, but the woodsman's wife could not be more clearly 16th century and also has literally no bearing on the plot.
The plot is just that an 8'-tall red Tim Curry with giant ox horns and hooves (sort of Hellboy meets The Mask except red, but a faun) lives in a cave under the forest attended by goblin servants and goes by the name The Darkness and apparently is the son... of Satan...? but can be killed by sunlight like a vampire, so plots to kill the last two unicorns which apparently are all that have kept the sun rising all this time (who knew?). He sends goblins who shoot the second to last unicorn while it's sniffing the princess's hand (what princess? good question! we know that she's friends with Tom Cruise and the woodsman's wife, and that's it), and she just has time to agree with Tom Cruise that they love each other and probably want to get married before the unicorn's death plunges the forest into a magical frozen winter in which the people in the woodsman's cottage are all frozen but the princess and Jack aren't for no reason. They rush off to investigate, are separated, and the princess gets scooped up accidentally by the goblins capturing the last unicorn, so Tim Curry has the chance to accidentally become infatuated with her. He is instructed by Satan via Zoom call that he is fascinated because her heart is pure and the correct procedure is to lure her to the dark side, which he does by sneakily offering her a silver tea service, a diamond necklace, and a glittery black goth dress, the last of which appears to her on a faceless dancer in an honest to god black glitter gimp suit and waltzes with her until she somehow magically consents to wear it.
Meanwhile Mowgli Cruise, with the aid of an obvious Puck knockoff named Gump, an obvious Tinkerbell knockoff named Oona, and two bumbling bulb-nosed fairies who look exactly like dwarves right down to the beards, outfits himself in magical fairy armor with a magical fairy sword, gets kidnapped by the goblins, rigs up a series of mirrors to beam sunlight into the cave, and then attacks Tim Curry right after the princess, who obtained a sword by pretending she wanted to be the Queen of Darkness and asking to kill the unicorn, frees it by breaking the single chain holding it with a single blow from the sword. There's a fight and eventually the doors open and Tim Curry is struck by reflected light and dies, and for some reason the princess is enchanted unconscious but Tom Cruise simply returns her own ring to her and wakes her with true love's kiss and they walk into the sunset after waving goodbye to the fairies for what feels like about five minutes.
