Willow is a movie that I've heard so much about over the years but had never seen. In the wake of yesterday's announcement from Lucasfilm, about there being a Willow TV series being in development for Disney+ I decided to see if the movie was streaming anywhere. It is. It's on Disney+, which I should've known without looking it up since Willow was produced by Lucasfilm from a story written by George Lucas himself, and Disney owns Lucasfilm, not just Star Wars and the Indiana Jones films. So I watched it for the very first time last night.
If you've never seen Willow and don't know what it's about, the best way to describe it is Star Wars meets Lord of the Rings. It's definitely more like Lord of the Rings, but being that George Lucas created these characters, there are definitely some elements and themes in this movie that were also in the Star Wars movies. Willow, played by the always amazing Warwick Davis, is a Nelwyn farmer who is thrust into the problems of the larger world when a baby washes up onto his land from the river. He goes on a journey to take the baby back to her people as she is the Chosen One who will bring about the downfall of the evil Queen Bavmorda. Along the way Willow encounters a man named Madmartigan, played by Val Kilmer, Sorsha, the daughter of Bavmorda, and a race of people who are even smaller than the Nelwyns, known as Brownies.
Like The Lord of the Rings, Willow has a lot of slow moments, with a lot of walking and talking scenes and not a whole lot of action. Plus it involves a halfling, similar to how Tolkien's work focused on the Hobbits. The Empire Strikes Back, Star Wars: Episode II Attack of the Clones and Star Wars: The Last Jedi are sort of that way too (slow with lots of talking and not much action). Unlike The Lord of the Rings, Willow isn't boring. It's funny, interesting and short, while still having a world that is vast and deep, but still being understandable and not overly developed or complicated.
The cast in this movie is fantastic. Warwick Davis is one of my favourite actors that has been in both Star Wars and the Harry Potter movies. I know he's in the Leprechaun films, which I haven't seen, as well as various other movies but for the last few years I've seen him most frequently as the Master of Ceremonies/panel moderator at Star Wars Celebration and he is absolutely hilarious. Basically he's been the face of Star Wars fandom for the last several years. And of course I know Val Kilmer from Top Gun, Batman Forever, the 2008 TV remake/sequel of Knight Rider where he replaced William Daniels as the voice of K.I.T.T., and the Dreamworks animated movie The Prince of Egypt where he voiced Moses.
I'm not familiar with the rest of the cast, aside from Phil Fondacaro, who played Roland on Sabrina the Teenage Witch in a recurring role starting in the first season, and Tony Cox who played one of the Dinks in Spaceballs. Though many of the actors who play the Nelwyn villagers in the beginning of the movie, before Willow sets off on his quest, played Ewoks in Return of the Jedi as well as the two Ewoks TV movies, Caravan of Courage: An Ewok Adventure and Ewoks: The Battle for Endor.
Even though they're pretty dated by today's standards, the special effects in this movie still hold up pretty well today. The morphing technique that was developed by Industrial Light & Magic (ILM) for Willow would later be used again by ILM for Terminator 2: Judgment Day, Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.
The movie's score was done by James Horner, so naturally the music reminded me of the music for Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, Star Trek III: The Search for Spock and The Rocketeer. However, unlike those movies, I found that some of the music was very reminiscent of John Williams's work for the Star Wars franchise and the Indiana Jones movies. I think that's just because these Fantasy films of the '80s do have a similar sound to them when it comes to the music, regardless of who the composer is working on the film. Like even the early Christopher Reeve Superman movies, particularly Superman: The Movie, has that kind of fantasy/adventure film sound to it, even though Williams did a more bombastic score for that movie than he did for Star Wars and what James Horner did for Willow.
My only real criticisms with this movie come from two places. The first are the Brownies, Rool and Franjean. They're meant to be the comedic relief much like Artoo and Threepio are in the Star Wars movies, but they actually end up coming off as annoying, especially because they're so small they can't actually do anything. So they don't really have a role in the film once the Brownies lead Willow to the fairy queen, Cherlindrea, who then gives Willow his quest to get Elora Danan back so she may fulfill the prophecy. But, like I said, they're the comedic relief, they just don't work that way. At least not to me.
The second thing I have a problem with in this movie is how quick and shallow Sorsha's turn near the end of the movie was. She wasn't really evil through the whole movie up to this point, she was simply doing her duty as Bavmorda's daughter. But nothing in the movie made her turn against Bavmorda, except for her realization that she was in love with Madmartigan. My problem with this is that there are at least two reasons for Sorsha to turn against Bavmorda. The first being the survival of all living beings on the planet if Bavmorda would be allowed to continue to rule over the land. The second being the life of Elora Danan. But no, instead she turns because she falls in love with Madmartigan. It feels forced in a way so that there would be a love story alongside the action story. Which is all well and fine, but this love story came out of the blue and didn't have time to develop and grow since most of Sorsha's interactions with Madmartigan included her either trying to kill him or kick his teeth in simply for existing in the same universe as she did.
And it just feels like a flimsy reason for Sorsha to switch sides when it's taken a lot more than a handsome man to change a woman's mind in so many other movies. Especially when that woman is as strong and determined as Sorsha is. It's hard to believe that this character was created by the same guy who created Princess Leia only 11 years prior to the release of this movie. I mean, sure Sorsha's betrayal of Bavmorda was hinted at near the start of the movie, but a reason wasn't specified and so to find out what that reason was, is kind of a let down and a bit weird in the events of the story.
Final Thoughts and Rating: Overall, Willow is an excellent movie. It's a little slow to start and it does slow down a little bit near the middle, but it's still a really solid flick. I would definitely recommend it to people if they've never seen it before. As I said at the beginning of this review, Willow is streaming on Disney+ so if you have that, you can watch it no problem. As for my rating for this movie I think I'm going to give it an 8.5/10 stars. No movie is perfect, and since Willow isn't a movie that I grew up watching, the nostalgia factor is completely out of the equation for this rating. Aside from my two problems with this movie, this was a really good film.
No comments:
Post a Comment