Krull (1983)

Kinda cheesy but fun B movie

I hadn't seen this movie in a very long time until I rented it just recently. Seeing it as an adult is another experience than seeing it as a child as I did the first time around, but it was still a lot of fun. The special effects are dated now, and the acting is a little on the corny side, but it's still a good time. I'm not much of a fan of fantasy movies, but this had enough adventure in it to take away from those aspects that usually turn me off.

The premise is there for a good triumphing over evil story, which is always a good time. Prince Colwyn and Princess Lyssa have arranged a marriage, uniting their two kingdoms as an ancient tale has told. Their son will rule the gallaxy. On the eve of their wedding, the party is attacked and crashed by an army of evil. Princess Lyssa is taken away hostage by the army of The Beast, an invader whose Black Fortress has taken hold of their world. Colwyn has nothing but a wise old man advisor, his horses, and a band of happy bumbling fool wizards and criminals (one being a young Liam Neison) to help him on his quest to rescue Lyssa and defeat The Beast.

Fairy tales are wonderful things, especially in this harsh and rather bitter times we live in. The idea of the handsome prince wanting to come and rescue the damsel in distress in the ivory tower is always a wonderful fantasy for women of any age to have. Action and adventure always appeal to us, seeing people preform great physical stunts and overcoming impossible odds is a great thing. There's enough humor in it from the awkward wizzard Ergo, to the cyclops, to the cute kid Tich that appeals to people of all ages. And it's English humor on top of it, which provides some camp and silliness that only English humor can provide. A good movie for a lazy afternoon or an evening in. Have fun with it. December 13, 2008

Enjoyable fantasy romp!

In a magical world called Krull, a mysterious dark magic fortress from space called "The Black Fortress" lands on the planet. A powerful Beast and his minions attack the planet, Prince Colwyn (Ken Marshall) and the beautiful Princess Lyssa (Lysette Anthony) as they marry so that two rival kingdoms can be united in peace, that is until the warriors of the Beast kidnap her during the ceremony. Colwyn joins up with an unlikely band of heroes named Ynyr (Freddie Jones), Ergo the magician (David Battley), Cyclopic Rell (Bernard Bresslaw), Convict Rhun (Robbie Coltrane from "Harry Potter"), Kegan (Liam Neeson), Oswyn (Todd Carthy), blind prophet Sneer (John Welsh) and young boy Titch (Graham Mcgrath) go on a quest to find the missing princess and Colwyn is armed with a special magical five-bladed disc weapon called "The Glave" which he must use it to battle the evil alien armies and the powerful Beast.

Exciting and enjoyably campy Sci-fi fantasy romp is one of the cleverist and most stylish Sci-fi and fantasy combo movies around even in the 80's. It is basically an unusual fairy tale that plays like a cross between "Star Wars", "Flash Gordon" and even J.R.R. Tolkein, the film has became to become a cult favorite with some fantasy/Sci-fi fans and people who grew up in the 80's. James Horner's music score is quite majestic here, there's decent acting, good special effects, cool looking monsters and plenty of action. If you like a good old fashioned campy Sci-fi fantasy epic with plain fun then this could be it.

This special edition DVD has quality picture and good sound with cool extras like two audio commentaries, an interactive full length virtual comic book with soundtrack and dialog from the film, Trailers to this and other Columbia titles, featurette, and bios.

Also recommended: "Clash of the Titans", "The Dark Crystal", "Star Wars Saga", "Flash Gordon", "Willow", "The Neverending Story", "Dragonheart", "Excalibur", "Fire and Ice", "Lord of the Rings Trilogy", "The Spiderwick Chronicles", "Heavy Metal", "Wizards", "The Fifth Element", "Army of Darkness", "The Princess Bride", "Big Trouble in Little China", "Princess Mononoke", "Star Trek Series" and "Starchaser: Legend of Orin". March 7, 2008

More Christmas Panto than Star Wars with swords and sorcery

At one point called The Dragons of Krull until someone noticed that they'd written the dragons out in one of the early draft screenplays, this 1983 underachiever was the end result of Columbia's desire for a big fantasy film - any fantasy film - to compete in the Star Wars stakes: the story came later, and came made to measure.

The result is a pic'n'mix of several genres, from swashbuckler to sci-fi as Ken Marshall's Prince must rescue his Princess (Lysette Anthony, dubbed, although on past form this is no great hardship) from the alien Slayers who have invaded his world. The notion of a medieval society literally fighting an enemy armed with scientific weapons with swords and sorcery is intriguing, but nothing here does it justice - where Lucas established an entire credible universe for Star Wars, we know nothing about this world: it exists purely for the purposes of the story.

This is more of a Christmas panto than anything else, with dialogue to match, although at least the latter improves when Marshall teams up with Alun Armstrong's outlaw band that includes Liam Neeson, a cockney Robbie Coltrane (looking all cloned up for a night in a gaybar) and even Eastenders Todd Carty.

Stephen Grimes' production design comes into its own with the organically designed Black Fortress, although his sets always look like sets (everything is peachy clean - even the swamps), leaving the paradox of an obviously very expensive film that still manages to look a bit cheap, for which Peter Suschitzky's photography must take much of the blame. Perfect on the exteriors, he consistently proves unable to match them with the interiors. Even worse, the camera feels like it is often in the wrong place (courtesy of director Peter Yates), and the editor seems more interested in what's going on in the sidelines than in the action itself, particularly in the fight in the swamp where the last Slayers are despatched in the background with the minimum of interest.

Not all is lost, however. There is one terrific sequence when Freddie Jones' Obi-Wan substitute must venture into a giant spider web to find out the location of the Slayer's Black Fortress from his long abandoned lover, Francesca Annis' Widow of the Web. There's heart, soul and a painful sense of lost opportunity to the scene that shines through, a magical moment that defies the lack of inspiration in the surrounding scenes and Freddie Jones' unrestrained ham (elsewhere his performance is pure "Can you hear me at the back, mother?" grandstanding) to create something quite touching. Similarly, Bernard Bresslaw's Cyclops, doomed to know the moment of his death from birth, benefits from a dignified, sincere performance that makes more of his scenes than they deserve. James Horner's, too, score is one of the film's greatest strengths, but the mix tends to lose much of it - a shame, because it is possibly his best work to date.

Columbia's DVD boasts a goodwidescreen transfer and a good selection of extras. December 16, 2007

Sojourn to Somewhere

This movie is more about taking a journey somewhere and meeting people along the way. If you have no patience for that, then this movie may be a bit of a disappointment. The effects and music are certainly good. But this was made in the time around "Star Wars" and you can see the influence. If I was to change anything I would have taken the ray guns and space ship away from the bad guys. It doesn't fit with the rest the medieval theme. Reasonably entertaining if you enjoy the lesser adventure movies of the 1980s like "Sword and Sorcerer" and "Dragonslayer". I truly like the characters, but even I found the journey to slay the beast a bit tedious at times. It didn't seem as though they had a clear idea one way or another. You may not be overly drawn to the Prince and Princess either as although decent, they don't exactly draw you to them with personality. Still a decent movie in the genre that will entertain most family members if thrown in the player on a rainy day. Good quality DVD with a nice collection of extras. November 8, 2007

Tacky, but loveable.....

This little chuppa of a film is one of the myriad of "sword and sorcery" films of the early eighties, a lot that produced VERY few satisfactory examples....one exception was called, oddly enough, "The Sword and the Sorcerer", a film I reviewed here earlier; one of the others was this thing, "Krull". This film starred Ken Marshall, Freddie Jones, PBS perennial Lysette Anthony, BBC perennial and David Lynch's Jessica Atreides...Francesca Annis, Liam Neeson, Robbie Coltrane and other recognizable faces in a movie that, though a tad tacky around the edges, has an awful lot of charm!

Though their marriage ceremony is kind of wince-inducing, ("I give fire to water...' etc., etc.,) the young couple at the center of the film is likeable enough, though the girl doesn't get much screen time. THAT is given to Marshall and a slew of good-natured thieves, along with Jones, that he hooks up with after they attempt to corner him in a box canyon. His show of cheek and bravery wins them over, and they join him in his quest to save his intended from a monster called "The Beast", who has just about wiped out his and his bride's kingdoms in a move to take over their world.

Also involved in this whole mess is the search for a sort of ninja star device that acts like a magic boomerang. Colwyn's, (Marshall's character,) acquisition and possession of this device cements his ascent to the throne of his kingdom. Along the way to rescue his lady and to confront the Beast, Colwyn and his friends meet an amateur magician named Ergo and a seer who is promptly killed so that a changeling can take his place to entrap Colwyn.

The cinematography of this movie has a funky quality that is hard to describe...the scene, in fact, with the changeling has to be one of the best looking in the film, with all the fallow plant life and lighting, but the one scene that I've also always liked is the one where the rescuers are all riding the "Firemares", coursing through the air as flame streams from the hooves of these creatures. Fans of Ray Harryhausen will like the "Widow of the Web" sequence as well, (this is the part that stars Annis.)

The art direction is an odd mixture of "Barbarella" meets "The Hidden" meets "Excalibur", meets "Henson's Creature Shop", and though its low budget is woefully obvious, it's still a charmer. Just remember, both Coltrane and Neeson have gone on to become prestige performers in a business where it's hard to ACQUIRE that kind of reputation. Considering that this was probably the first film for both...Peter Yates, the director, must have been doing SOMETHING right...

(Believe me, in this genre, you could do LOTS worse....!) September 6, 2007

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