The 80’s were the heyday of fantasy cinema. As somebody who was in the target market for such features at that time, I find myself wondering why I was so slow to take to it. I may have seen The Dark Crystal and Labyrinth in theatres during their initial runs, and may regard them highly even today, I wouldn’t say I love either one. I even remember seeing Krull, another such film I loved neither then nor now, but one I will still defend against its many detractors. But I was still very reluctant to watch Legend, Ridley Scott’s 1985 excursion into the genre. When I finally did check it out in the 21st century, I was pleasantly surprised.
Just to be clear, there’s a great deal of boilerplate fantasy crap in this I still struggle with. Ther are elves and fairies. There are unicorns, my least favorite trapping of the genre by far. There is an excess of glitter, as well as that heavy pollen hanging in the air that seems to always irritate my sinuses just through suggestion. Some scenes have bubbles floating through the air, for fuck’s sake.
Through such environments wander Tom Cruise and Mia Sara. I’m still not sure what Cruise is supposed to be, besides a “child of the forest”. In various conversations, it is revealed he is neither an elf nor a fairy. From his general appearance, I’m guessing he is supposed to be Peter Pan, just not addressed by that name. One thing I do know is he somehow looks underage, and has a voice which sounds like he had yet to reach puberty.
Mia Sara, on the other hand, was just shy of the age maturity when she made the film, yet often looks to be in her early 20s. Her character is a princess, and she behaves in a bratty and entitled behavior that is only softened by her overall gentleness and naivete. The less pleasant aspects of her personality are magnified in the director’s cut, which I recommend over the theatrical version.
Regardless of the version watched, this is a film about Darkness—visually, morally and even Tim Curry’s character, who is named as such. Essentially the devil, he longs for perpetual night, as light is the only thing which can destroy him. The only way the sun can be prevented from rising again is by killing the last of the unicorns. Almost as a side-mission, he wants to take Sara as his bride, but it almost like his minions stumbled upon her and he decided at random, “I’ll take that one.”
Assisting Cruise in his mission to rescue Sara and the last unicorn, are a group of folk wee enough to make the actor look larger in comparison. Billy Barty and Cork Hubbert are well-used as comic-relief dwarves. David Bennent is Gump, a Puck-like figure who we first see challenging Cruise to solve a riddle. As with many of the subtle touches added by the Director’s Cut, that version strongly conveys our hero’s life is at stake should he fail.
This ragtag group resembles such assemblages of similar 80’s films, most notably the band of thieving dwarves in Time Bandits. Also like that film, there’s a fair amount of slapstick and humorous lines. Alas, the majority of these bits fall a hair short of being completely successful, though I appreciated the effort just the same. I may not have laughed out loud very often, but I smiled a great deal and even chuckled a few times.
The mirror image of this group is the similarly diminutive, yet very wicked, group of Curry’s minions. There’s Peter O’ Farrell as a disgusting pig-man, and Kiran Shah as some weird, steam-punk, tiny knight with the voice recalling Peter Lorre. He gets what may be the funniest line in the film when he sees a unicorn: “Look! An ugly, one-horned mule.”
The leader of that group is the demon Blix, as played by Alice Playten. She’s unrecognizable under a great deal of gross and gooey latex. I’m not sure which I find harder to mentally reconcile: Playten’s Blix or Eileen Dietz as the demon Pazuzu in The Exorcist. A weird connection to that film are what appear to be statues of that demon in the foreground of a couple of shots here.
The Blix makeup is effective, but not so startling as the transformation made to Curry. The costume and makeup are still visually stunning today, with cloven hooves for feet and enormous curved horns atop his head. It is a realization so thorough that it almost makes the actor disappear inside it, so it is a testament to his acting ability that he can so strongly emote through the makeup and prosthetics. The intensity of his presence is so great as to leave me with the impression he’s in the film for more of the runtime than he is. Also, the first glimpse of him is a hoof coming into the world through a mirror, which seems to be a thing from such 80’s flicks, though the only one I can recall at this time is Prince of Darkness.
Another shocking creation is Robert Picardo in his brief scene as the monstrous Meg, a witch-like being in the swamp outside Curry’s lair. The makeup and costuming is astonishing, resulting in a genuinely terrifying encounter with Cruise where she intends to eat him. There’s a very brief moment here I like, where he seems to realize how much he has underestimated the weight of the sword he’s now trying to wield for the first time.
To my considerable surprise, I have come to appreciate Legend more than any of its ilk; albeit, only in its longest form. Whether or not one can lose themselves in the material, I think few can deny it is a visual feast, with moments recall the director’s best work from his early career. Visual similarities abound, such as the many pillars and debris-strewn floor of Curry’s great hall, which recalls the lobby of The Bradbury apartment building in Blade Runner. There are even some audio callbacks, and I swear the death of Meg has some of the same sound effects employed in Ian Holm’s death scene in Alien. I think it’s telling this film seems similar to the other two and, all together, these films seem unlike his work which followed it, which I do not hold in as high of regard.
Dir: Ridley Scott
Starring Tom Cruise, Mia Sara, Tim Curry
Watched on blu-ray