Krull (1983)

Krull takes place in a medieval fantasy world that has been invaded by an evil alien race known as The Slayers who are led by their leader known only as “The Beast.” These aliens almost don’t fit in the setting, since they fight with laser rifles and swords that for some reason emit a (cheap looking) red electrical charge when clashing with other objects. The human race is being exterminated (The aliens have laser rifles!) so two enemy kingdoms join forces through the marriage of Prince Colwyn (Ken Marshall) and Princess Lyssa (Lysette Anthony). The wedding ceremony is interrupted however, when The Beast sends his slayers to capture the princess so that he can marry her for some reason. It’s never really clear why he wants to marry a human when all his people do is slaughter them, but that’s the set up for the plot. In fact, it's mentioned that the Prince and Princess will have an heir who will rule the galaxy. So in order to prevent this you'd think that The Beast would just kill the princess. It's not as if she wasn't his captive for the majority of the film. Anyway, the prince must now journey all over the world with his band of followers that join him as the story progresses (like in any fantasy) and rescue the princess. He meets up with various characters like Ynyr (Freddie Jones), a wise old warrior, Ergo “The Magnificanct” (David Battley), a cowardly magician, a Cyclops (Bernard Bresslaw), and Torquil (Alun Armstrong), the leader of a band of convicts. There are several convicts (one of whom is played by Liam Neeson), but for the most part they are pretty forgettable and only serve the film as cannon fodder in dangerous situations. This way, the predicaments the party finds themselves in seem truly dangerous, but none of the important characters have to die. While we're on the topic of death, it needs to be mentioned that the entire human race is on the verge of extinction. The film tells of a prophecy in which Prince Colwyn and Princess Lyssa have a child who would rule the galaxy or whatever. The only problem is how exactly this would occur. There are hardly any humans left to rule by the end of this film, so this future King would be the a King without subjects, presiding over a planet of corpses. I guess it all seems kind of pointless to me.

The acting in this film is pretty forgettable, but there is one performance that is simply baffling. Ken Marshall (who you may remember as Rodney Owens from one episode of Quantum Leap or from his unforgettable performance as "Doctor" from the classic 1982 horror film Claws) plays the young Prince Colwyn, and throughout the film, it becomes apparent that he doesn’t really give a damn about anyone else in his party, let alone the fate of the human race. Many characters die in sometimes gruesome ways and through it all, he maintains a goofy grin as if he’s enjoying the experience. He loses his father, his mentor, his wife, most of his party, and faces death nearly every hour or so in what is essentially an apocalyptic scenario. At the beginning of the film, his father mentions off hand that just getting to the location where the marriage would take place cost them 300 soldiers. None of this seems to faze him however, and he maintains his sunny disposition throughout the entire film. Well, except for one scene: During his battle with The Beast, he hurls his trusty Glaive, which is something of an ultimate weapon in this film, and it wounds The Beast. I guess he guides it by holding his arm forward, because that’s pretty much all he does when he uses it; he just stands there with his arm outstretched and watches the weapon do all the fighting for him…riveting stuff. Anyway, the Glaive gets stuck in The Beast and he finds that he is unable to call it back. I found myself laughing out loud at his reaction to this: It seemed to change from all smiles to having a genuine “Oh, shit” expression on his face. It would appear that there really is something that this character cares about. He had almost no expression when he was reunited with the Princess, and didn’t seem to even notice that his team got split up during the final battle. But I'll be damned if that Glaive isn't cool.

The film is filled with special effects, most of which suck. That may seem unfair considering that this film was made in 1983, but compared to other big budget fantasy films of the time such as the Star Wars trilogy or even Dragonslayer (1981), this one just doesn’t cut it. It is filled with a lot of really obvious green screen effects and The Beast itself is just not that impressive, especially when compared to other creatures like Darkness from Legend (1985). The best images from the film are the scenes where Lyssa is trapped in The Beast’s layer. It’s almost like a living creature; constantly moving and breathing with teeth and claws jutting out from walls and behind corners. Some of the scenes look almost like abstract art. The Prince’s journey is kind of interesting to look at, as he covers a lot of ground and goes to a variety of different locations, but with the characters that are hard to care about, none of it really means anything. Ergo “The Magnificent” is meant to be the comic relief I think, but he’s much more annoying than he is funny. There are definitely better ‘80s fantasy films than this, so needless to say, I wouldn’t recommend wasting time with Krull.