"The Church of Tim Curry" - Legend

howdy folks Jamboree key and welcome to another episode of The Church of Tim Cory the show where we were a few movie starring our Lord and Savior mr. Tim Curry joining me is my co-host fever Becca hi this time we're going to be discussing the 1985 fantasy fairy tale legend in this film a forest hermit called Jack introduces a princess called Lily to two unicorns despite being discouraged by Jack Lily confronts the unicorns there manages to tame the creatures unfortunately that means that a group of evil goblins are given an opportunity to shoot a poisonous

dart at one unicorn on two orders of their boss a demon called darkness played by His Holiness Tim Curry the death of the unicorn causes the forest to freeze over and things will get worse once darkness sacrifices the other unicorn meanwhile Lily ends have been kidnapped by darkness who wants to seduce the princess into becoming his bride with help from a childish elf called Gump a fairy called una and a team of plucky dwarfs Jack must travel to darkness as Leia to rescue will and stop darkness from slaying the offer unicorn so I was very

confused by this movie and had little clue about what was going on half the time Viva what were your initial thoughts on legend I would say that it's really feels a lot like those 80s fantasy movies that came out around the same time like labyrinth the only difference is it looks better but I would say that everything else is worse that's my quick summary of it it's interesting that you compare it of a dog fantasy movies from the 80s because I was often so bored by this film that I kept myself entertained by noticing similar

it was two other eighties fairytale fantasy movies that came before ain't like the Dark Crystal and Time Bandits I think that's my biggest gripe with Legend it's very generic yes every fantasy tropes just squished in there there's nothing about Legend helps it stand out from the crowd of fantasy fairy tale movies that came out in the 80s it's just enough a hero's journey and his quest to stop an evil force that's taken over the land oh but I think it's important to let our listeners know that Viva watch the American theatrical cut and I watch

the European theatrical cut both of which lasts roughly an hour and a half I am aware of the differences between the cuts though yeah I've looked into them too apparently the director's cut is superior while I can't say anything without actually seeing the director's cut I'm skeptical about whether it really is a huge step up from what we saw there maybe justify reasons why these cuts were made in the first place I mean many directors can have a bloated vision for their project and a little trimming can help shape a film into something more digestible

now maybe Scott's version is an improvement and perhaps some deleted scenes could have added a little something special to the mix but there are still problems with this movie that can't be fixed by simply restoring a bunch of missing scenes yeah I feel like it could have had a better vision of what the tone should be though if they had maybe added in some other things I could I felt like it could have explained a lot of things better it could have had some character development there's no character development of any of the characters so

leaving in some things might have been helpful I think that was a really big issue for me I didn't care about any of the characters yet the movie has this attitude where it assumes that we fallen for them all by the end when the characters are all saying goodbye to each other I felt nothing at all but the movie was implying that I should give a [ __ ] and we're supposed to be very emotional about everyone going their separate ways yet I honestly didn't care about saying goodbye to these cookie cutter characters it's mainly

because everything in this movie is so frantically rushed and you can tell that scenes have been butchered on the cutting room floor you can't get sucked into the atmosphere of the film due to this and the visuals are the best part of the movie the set designs are listened Motoko freefall legend all superbly lavish but I don't feel the enchanting atmosphere of this movies forest even though it looks really pretty and I don't care that the forest is in trouble either everyone is making a big deal about the demise of this world and I wasn't

bothered we spend what feels like roughly five minutes in this forest before we find out that it's in danger I don't care that these people are in trouble either no I don't either I'm really not first again he goes back to my point that the film things were attached to these characters without giving us some kind of narrative aid to help us sympathize with them yes and the only thing that they show well okay Tom Cruise plays a twitchy weirdo in this movie and that's basically everything about him is he's a twitchy weirdo they don't

show anything else and then the main girl the girl from Ferris Bueller she plays like kind of a bratty [ __ ] like the only development scene we see of her before the story really begins she goes to visit her so-called friend she messes up her laundry by throwing it all on the ground and then she takes her food and then she leaves and that has her development and we're supposed to care about her I don't think so but speaking of Tom Cruise I find it hilarious that this movie tries to play him off as

whimsical that his gold when I first saw Tom Cruise in this Peter Pan kind of pose and a bird lands on his shoulder I burst out laughing and and he does the the face that he makes throughout the movie or he's like oh oh a bird that goblin hood he's always looking confused he doesn't know what the [ __ ] is going on confused and horrified when I find really funny about this is I watched the trailer which was actually pretty good it was the best that you could make for this one and I looked

at the promotional materials and stuff and there's a reason why they never show below the waist they shadow it all out because people don't wear pants in this movie and he looks ridiculous he does I just honestly couldn't stop laughing I think for the first 20 minutes I was just giggling at how silly Tom Cruise looked Tom Cruise just can't pull this character off the problem with Tom Cruise and this is mainly from the perspective of an audience of today is that people seem as evil walking punch line or a serious action star so it's

difficult for us to take in the idea of him being this whimsical helmet of the forest you're asking too much of me moving too much okay even with no associations though even with no associations he's a guy who lives in a tree he wears no pants and he makes this weird face throughout the whole movie so I don't think I would take him seriously even if he were an unknown yes it's not just cruises miss casting jack is a very blind character I get that he's supposed to be this unlikely hero but it's not a

very interesting take on the trope he just walks around looking confused as he takes instructions from fantasy creatures he randomly means it seems like all the characters were kind of wooden all the performances were they had very fantastical dialogue writing but nobody pulled it off it was all kind of wooden another issue I have with the acting is that everyone looks like they have crazy eyes I kept thinking why are they looking at Tom Cruise like that you look like you have murderous intent in your eyes yeah the only one who was supposed to have

crazy eyes was Tim Curry but Gump in that fairy who are meant to be somewhat charming and magical they look like they're about to kill Tom Cruise one second then be his best friend the next so should we talk about Tim Curry because he is the one who really came out of this film unscathed I'd say he's the only one that actually comes out looking okay and he's the one that people remember this film for I think absolutely the thing I love about Tim Curry is darkness is that he commands this role and he doesn't

let the voice filters or makeup do all the work all things change letting the dreams of youth are the regrets of maturity dreams of my speciality through dreams I influence mankind my dream with you yes and his face moves under the makeup which i think is really important because there's a lot of makeup and appliances in this movie um and the other people their faces don't move enough for me they're probably trying a lot but what they tend to do is they just move their bodies a lot while they're talking and that's how they try

to get their acting through but their faces just don't move enough Tim Curry's face doesn't move as much as it usually does but he's under pounds and pounds of makeup and I think it moves enough that I'm you know I'm impressed with what he's doing totally and I think he owns whatever scene he's in and whenever he was on screen that was when I was the most awake he's that entertaining and he really believes in the lines he's saying I felt really engrossed his performance he's actually giving a performance now his his character I won't

say that I'm too impressed with the writing of the character his motivations his random desire to marry Ferris Bueller girl how he's defeated in the end I don't care for that too much but the fact that he actually gives a performance is very impressive next one next to these non-existent performances so is there anything else you'd like to say about this movie any points we've not covered so far that you're itching to bring up first of all they made a lot of strange choices visually and effects wise they didn't really build the world but they

made strange set choices for instance every time we see the characters they're just covered in more and more glitter I don't know what that's about but it must mean something I don't know they throw glitter everything is glittery but you know the sets have a very interesting look about them they look kind of like fantasy illustrations brought to life as best they can yes yes a lot of shots looked like that especially that shot of gum playing is pan-flute next to the unicorns as petals blow by that looked like a fantasy painting also there's a

part where Tom Cruise is he's been frozen under the water he he's trying to get out under the ice and the sound effects they use I sound like punching sound effects they don't sound like ice sound effects and things like that really take away from the story and they make you confused as to what's happening how things connect that might be another reason why the story feels kind of weird my recommendation for the movie is go on Wikipedia or somewhere and read the synopsis of the movie I promise you that you will not have anything

spoiled for the ending if you are very worried about twists or anything no it's a guy trying to save a princess from basically the devil exactly what happens what you think is gonna happen will happen there are no twists and it will sort of explained the things that the movie itself doesn't explain do that first then watch the movie and you will have a much better experience and knowing what's happening will you know be in your mind so you won't be confused and you'll be able to get into the visuals more which is what people

really watch this movie for I think now go to lie I felt very tempted to go on Wikipedia to work out what was supposed to be happening half the time I was so puzzled because everything is so muddled and exposition flies by any attempt at creating themes tones mess Jews end up going nowhere or get buried under their stylistic visuals now going to lie I felt very tempted to go on Wikipedia to work out what we're supposed to be happening half the time I was so puzzled because everything is so muddled and exposition flies by

any attempts at creating themes tones or messages end up going nowhere or get buried under the stylistic visuals many of these characters can be very passive-aggressive or indecisive about their feelings or intentions for example when our heroes finally find princess lily and see that she's evil now gump calmly advises jack trust your heart don't believe what you say but then randomly Gump screams kill her a minute later what what it's terrifying and at the beginning Lily tells Jack I'd like to give my suit as a challenge so she froze her ring into the lake for

Jiang to collect and she starts freaking out when Jack jumps in after it Lily you just challenged Jack to do this why are you so surprised yes I mean not to mention he's a twitchy weirdo so I don't know how long she's known him but I expect he's twitch Lee jumped into the river multiple times for lesser reasons everything is just so sporadic and random in this movie the film can't decide what's happening half the time like later on in the film we can tell that Lily is tricking darkness that she's become evil because she

frees the Unicorn instead of killing it but then God reveals that she's under some kind of horrible spell what wife or was she yes and the part you know what a couple minutes before that when they were sneaking around and Gump goes no we have to stick together when the guy was like I'm gonna go off on my own and then literally two seconds later he's like we go our separate ways which is exactly the opposite of what he just said and back to what you said after Tom Cruise twit chilli jumps off the cliff

and the bratty princess is like no and then Tom Cruise gets frozen under the lake and bratty princess sees he's like oh love of my life just got trapped under the water and this lake better run off and no not save him at all because I love him so much so I'll just let him drown there I guess and that's how they get separated and they stay separated most of the movie but it says online that this is supposed to be a romance movie worst romances I have ever seen worse than Twilight yes worse than

Twilight totally I could not feel anything between them they spend what like five minutes together before they're separated and I didn't feel like they had much chemistry during those five minutes anyway let's wrap things up with our final verdicts to conclude I for that legend in its European code format was a very bland and generic fairytale fantasy it didn't bring anything new to the table or go the extra length to stand out from the crowd of dark fantasy films of the 80s the narrative is also very convoluted and hard to follow mainly because of the

codes but also because of the general overall writing and direction in addition I found it really funny watching Tom Cruise attempting to pull off a whimsical forest hermit he didn't fit the role at all and came off as unintentionally hilarious apparently legend was heavily inspired by classic Disney films and Brothers Grimm fairy tales it definitely feels like a homage to those kinds of movies and stories but it doesn't really expand on or deconstruct those inspirations it seems to simply copy them without knowing what made them charming and engaging in the first place however the imagery

and makeup is really impressive to look at I can't compliment the visuals enough this is a very beautiful looking moving Plus Tim Curry steals the film as a commanding and powerful presence in the role of darkness I'm going to give Legend a rating a 5 out of 10 and read the synopsis then you can focus on the visuals if you do not I promise you what two minutes into the film you're gonna be too bored to even pay attention you're just gonna turn it off so if there's a way that you can sort of prep

yourself to just get into it and put up with the confusing story you're gonna have more fun looking at the sets and looking at the makeup and looking at Tom Cruise's bare legs I will give it a three out of ten before reading the synopsis if you just go into it blind after reading the synopsis five out of ten I've been Jamboree key cheerio folks and I've been Aviva Becker goodbye [Music]