1985 / 94 Minutes / PG
Reviewed by Jason Jones

There’s some old saying that has something to do with “style over substance” or “style before substance”. I don’t know which one it is for certain, but I am quite sure that whoever said this had the films of Ridley Scott in mind.

Don’t get me wrong. I like Ridley, but he does have a tendency to get a little too wrapped up in the visual aspects of a film and forget about the story being told.

The film “Legend” is a prime example.

Sure the film looks nice, very nice in fact. Although I must say that the fairy dust floating in the rays of sunlight routine gets a little tired after a while. Aside from that, it is quite pleasing to the eyes, but I need a little more than “eye candy” to get me involved in a film.

Now you may call me greedy, but I expect to have this thing called a plot thrown in to wet my appetite. Not just any plot mind you, because even this film has something that could be construed as one if you looked at in the proper light. I expect a plot that justifies the film being made in the first place. I don’t think I’m being unreasonable by any stretch of the imagination.

Now you’re probably asking yourself what sort of film has a plot that is unworthy of being made into a film. My answer would be “Legend”. I mean. What in the name of Tom Cruise was going on here?!?

I want to make sure all of you are ready for this, so please be seated and focus your mind, because you are about to find out what the incredibly lame plot of this movie entails. One last time for those of you just joining the program. Are you ready?

YES!!!

Well here it is. The world falls into darkness due to some ignorant woman, who is no more than a mere mortal, laying her hands on a unicorn, which leads to the unicorn losing it’s horn to some jive-talking goblin. Yes, you heard right. The world falls into darkness due to a unicorn losing it’s horn. The reasoning behind this is never really explained to my satisfaction.

It seems it is because a mortal touched the unicorn, but we are never let in on the secret of why it is bad for a mortal to touch a unicorn and presumably good for an immortal to touch one. This troubled me more than it should have, but it pissed me off regardless. I must tell you it was quite exciting for me to watch the remainder of this film with the knowledge that this was all the more plot I was going to get.

Tom Cruise, in his early days in film, stumbles through this movie leering at clouds and scolding the ignorant woman who, of course, just so happens to be his love interest. I was pretty much embarrassed for Tom while watching this. He wanders around looking as if he got lost on the way to the set for “Top Gun” (which looks like “Apocalypse Now” in comparison to “Legend”). There is evidence that this could be true. I noticed a few times where Tom seemed to be unsure of what his lines were so, instead of ad-libbing, he chose to say nothing at all. I probably would have done the same. After all, what good would it have done?

Oh yeah. Tim Curry is in this movie. It’s not like you can tell, but I’m told he’s in there somewhere. He supposedly plays the evil entity responsible for the unicorn’s loss of horn.
I’m curious. Does that mean that the poor thing would now be called a corn? I figure it’s called a unicorn in the first place, because unihorn just doesn’t sound cool. Maybe it would just be nameless. See how much trouble I’m having searching for meaning in this movie? I told you it was devoid of interest. Regardless, Tim Curry is involved but, unlike Tom Cruise, you can’t tell it’s him. Good for Tim. Bad for Tom.

Other than the principles you’ve got a wily elf, named Gump, running around and that jive-talking goblin I mentioned before. I want to know what the story is with that. I can handle the fact that this movie should never have been made and I was foolish enough to sit through it.

What I can’t handle, is watching this movie and having to be subjected to a goblin who throws around some of the sorriest rhymes this side of Eminem. I don’t need that and neither do you.

The best thing about this pestilence is that it has a run time of just under ninety minutes. So, if you do have the misfortune of stumbling into it, the bleeding is fairly minimal.

I’ve heard some good legends before. The sword in the stone, the lady of the lake and Babe Ruth calling his shot are what I would call legends. This film is all style and no substance. It is not legendary. It is a cautionary tale of what a legend should not be.

Even “The Blair Witch Project” had more substance than whatever the nonsense is that’s going on here!

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 21st, 2002 at 8:18 pm and is filed under Jason's Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.