LEGEND (1985) - ****

(NOTE: This is a review of the Director's Cut.)



[size:"5"]"What is Light without Dark?"[/color]

I'll admit it, but I just don't care much for fantasy, especially that ole fucking "sword & sorcerey" nonsense. When any of those stories or movies go off with their elves, unicorns, princesses, dwarves, goblins, a hero on a magical quest and all that crap, they just give off an awkwardly goofy vibe of which I can't take seriously. Remember in my CONAN THE BARBARIAN review how the genre is mocked for being "silly and effeminate?" At the penalty of sounding chauvinistic, but I think most fantasy works deserve that criticism.

Sorry kids and gals.

Now a good example of such was Sir Ridley Scott's LEGEND, which had a rambling labyrinth plot tied together only by the art direction and the groovy Tim Curry, but even then they're neutralized by the embarrasingly cheesy and dated synthesizer soundtrack by Tangerine Dream (which reportedly they hastily composed and conducted within 2 weeks.) LEGEND was like a good case study of everything that 1980s Hollywood was at its worst: Tom Cruise starring in pretty eye candy designed to appeal to the teenie boppers, but as damn hollow as a dead oak tree for everyone else. It's the sort of movie where it's ok if you had liked it as a kid, but as an adult? Like owning Barry Manilow records, either keep such information to yourself, or accept that people will nod and then quietly walk away from you.

While LEGEND bombed in America, it was a hit in Europe which was a mystery to me. Then I find out that their LEGEND is completely different than the LEGEND we Yankees knew. For one thing, Scott chopped out 25 minutes for the USA release, which explains the massive plot holes. Second, the European version had a supeior score composed by the late great Jerry Goldsmith. Third, Scott and crew obviously took this whole enterprise seriously, which nobody would have gleamed from the infamous American cut. Fourth, and most important....despite containing elements of the genre which I usually hate, I actually ended up quite liking this particular LEGEND.

Hey crazier shit has happened, right?

As John Milius did with CONAN THE BARBARIAN, Scott took material that could easily be dismissed as adolescent illegitimate fare, and instead sought to grant it an aura of respectability, and not be ashamed of itself. He wanted to create visually and wholeheartedly a fairy tale, almost I guess in ambition the ultimate vision for fantasy cinema that some would argue that Scott had done for science fiction with ALIEN and BLADE RUNNER. Indeed with production design by Leslie Dilley, Assherton Gorton, and Norman Dorme, their hyperbolic symbolic worlds are tremendously juicy rich, and should have won an Oscar (fuck you A ROOM WITH A VIEW.) The beautiful forest of Light luscious with critters is Heaven, the frozen-over woods after the disaster is Purgatory, and the fire pits at the Palace of Darkness is pure Hell on Earth, a joint damned personally by God himself on day one.

I'll say something controversial here, but I'm more impressed by the overall aesthetics accomplished in LEGEND than with the whole LORD OF THE RINGS trilogy. Yeah what Peter Jackson and WETA did with special effects was commendable and certainly raised the cinema bar, but so what? They had computers, LEGEND didn't. It's one of the last great pre-CGI FX hurrahs, for everything you see had to be done practically on-set, including Rob Bottin's great Oscar nominated make-up, an art thankfully still not conquered by the microchips, and better for it methinks.

I mean take for example Tim Curry's excellent performance as Darkness. It seems that no matter what he does like ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW or CLUE or whatever, he always seems to be awesome. Unseen initially in LEGEND, his booming voice alone is the background threat always present and dangerous for the heroes and his henchmen monsters, but when he finally makes his entrance in full glory, you go Holy Shit! Scott claimed one of his inspirations for LEGEND was the classic Disney picture FANTASIA. Remember the giant frightening as hell demon in FANTASIA in the "Night on Bald Mountain" sequence? Well, Curry's Darkness is him coming to life. Would Darkness in full red satanic horns glory be as surprisingly stunning or convincing in CGI?



Come on, be honest folks.

In lock-stock with all this is Goldsmith's soundtrack. He had given us some great memorable themes from PLANET OF THE APES to PATTON to STAR TREK to FIRST BLOOD, and LEGEND might just very well be his most underrated work. Unlike that awful Tangerine Dream score, Goldsmith's music embellishes both the absolute goodness of the Light and the utter evil of the Dark, but re-enforces a crucial lesson that the world could flip to either on a whim, fairly or not.

This is important because on the surface, the story of LEGEND is what you would basically expect I assume, where both a beautiful princess (Mia Sara) and a mare unicorn is kidnapped by Darkness, who killed the other sole living unicorn and took his horn. The world is plunged in snow and without sun, and if the last unicorn dies, there will never be another dawn. Since that would totally suck, forest boy Jack (Cruise) and his rag-tag gang of elves and fairies embark into the Palace to stop Darkness. But underneath all this is a Grimm's fairy tale-esque parable that the road to Hell was paved by the well-meaning intentions of decent folks.

I mean consider that all this trouble started when Cruise showed Sara the unicorns. He knew that mere mortals can't lay eyes on such a rare divine creature, but hey he was horny and wanted to impress her. She herself got curious, and ignoring Cruise's warnings, her corruptable hands touch an untainted unicorn, because hey she's spoiled naive royalty. If neither had made their mistakes in spite of knowing better, Curry wouldn't have been to take the horn, and everything would have been alright. Then when Darkness seduces Sara in a great imaginative operatic dancing sequence, there is present a mature undertone of sexuality and lust:



See what I mean? Children will miss all this of course, but keen adults won't, and just consider all this when you watch the Director's Cut edit. This aint Disney folks.

As visually ambitious and successful as LEGEND is, it just lacks as great of a script as say CONAN THE BARBARIAN did. Oh sure the William Hjortsberg screenplay captures fine the spirit behind the Heroic Myth, where the protagonist decides to defy the impossible, finds his weapons, uses his wits to outsmart diabolical creatures, escape from ensured doom numerous times, ultimately defeat the bad guy, blah blah. But remember that CONAN did all that, but Milius included some insanely creative touches from Arnold Schwarzenegger knocking out a camel with a punch, being an enslaved breeding stud, his sole prayer to his God, throwing down his enemy's head like a basket, etc. LEGEND doesn't really have any such special twists on the Myth, though interestingly Hjortsberg's original script draft was even more ambitiously unique in designs, and even had a shocking scene where the villain did bed the Princess. Now consider that Sara was 15 at the time, yeah that would have been nuts enough to equal CONAN.

Still Hjortsberg did give Curry some awesome lines, particularly:

"The dreams of youth are the regrets of maturity."

Fuck yes.

The other problem is this: Curry is evil, Sara is the princess, and Tom Cruise is playing the hero. Notice the difference? Curry and Sara are perfect for their respective parts, the essential archtypes for the myth, but Cruise? Not so much. I know I've been ragging on him lately, but he's just out of place here. Not terrible, but he doesn't belong in this movie. Plus there are way too many shots where with greasy hair dangling over his face, I keep forgetting that this is Cruise and not Spicoli from FAST TIMES AT RIDGEMONT HIGH. I doubt that was Scott's intention at all. Also, the ending with Cruise and Sara strangely feels like a wrong turn, despite in idea being such a conclusion that I would usually applaud. My good pal Blasty wanted his release that the finale for CONAN failed to provide, and now I know how that feels like with LEGEND. Oh Karma you bitch.

Regardless, I strongly recommend that you defy alleged persisting myths of campyness and garbage, and go check out the Director's Cut of LEGEND. It's a pretty good strong picture bordering greatness that unfortunately is still tainted with ill-repute among certain circles because of its evil twin brother that was released back in America in 1986. Scott admits he conceived that disaster because some stoners at a test screening hated it, and he second-guessed himself. He absolutely wanted a hit, so he made his changes and it failed.

Such good intentions he had....