I was deep into tabletop RPGs when Legend came out, and a big-budget fantasy film from Ridley Scott was exactly what I needed to see. I already loved him for Blade Runner, so the combination of that director and a world full of unicorns, goblins, and dark lords felt like it was made for me personally.
The story is pure fairy tale, no apologies. A young forest boy named Jack lives in an enchanted wilderness with a princess named Lily. She touches one of the last unicorns, which she was told never to do, and that one moment of weakness lets Darkness send his goblins to take the unicorn's horn. Without it, winter closes in and the world starts dying. Jack has to get the horn back, rescue Lily, and face Darkness before everything goes dark for good. That's the whole thing. It doesn't try to be more complicated than that, and it doesn't need to be.
Mia Sara as Lily is good. She's warm and believable in a role that could have been just a prop, and the movie gives her enough to do that she feels like a real character rather than a prize to be collected.
But Tim Curry as Darkness is the reason to watch this film. The makeup alone is extraordinary: massive horns, red skin, a voice that sounds like it's coming up from somewhere underground. Curry plays him as genuinely seductive and genuinely terrifying at the same time. He doesn't camp it up. He commits completely, and the movie is better in every scene he's in. He's the best screen villain I saw that whole decade.
The Tangerine Dream score hit me so hard I went out and bought it on vinyl. I lost that record somewhere along the way, which I'm still annoyed about. The music fits the film perfectly: lush, strange, a little unsettling underneath all the beauty.
Ridley Scott builds the world the same way he built the one in Blade Runner, with total conviction. Every corner of the forest looks like it grew there. The darkness that creeps in as the unicorn weakens is genuinely oppressive. It's a film that takes its own atmosphere seriously.
Recommended.
