Willow

Year of release : 1988

Run time : 2h6m

Genre : Fantasy / Adventure

Cast : Val Kilmer

The movie was directed by Ron Howard and co-produced by George Lucas who also came up with the story in 1972.

Powerful evil queen Bavmorda is afraid of the birth of a child who is said to bring about her downfall. She manages to find and imprison all the pregnant women in the land, checking their babies for the mark on the arm of the baby,in order to k1ll her.

Finding the baby with the mark, her mother asks the midwife to save the baby, and the midwife accepts. Seeing she's been tricked, the evil queen sends her daughter with her army and hounds after her.

Having the hounds heavy on her tracks, the midwife puts the baby on a raft and sends it on the river. The hounds catch her right after.

The baby is found by the kids of a Nelwyn (a dwarf race), who show it to their father, Willow. Willow tells them not to touch it, as it's a Daikini (a tall race, meaning us ) baby and walks away as he is called by his landlord who fights with him for not paying his rent. Willow's wife finds the baby and wants to keep it.

They hold the baby for a while, until the evil queen's hounds barge in, attacking the cradles, while the dwarves in the village hold a festival.

Willow takes the baby to the village leader, who's also a sorcerer (earlier Willow hoped to be chosen by him to be his apprentice, but the man didn't choose anyone).

The elder tells him he needs to take the baby back, and leave it with someone of its kind. He also appoints other little men to join him, among which the man he was fighting with earlier.

At a fork in the road, they find a man trapped in a cage, and the man who is at war with him since the movie started, tells him to leave the baby with him, as the caged man is a Daikini, and leave. Willow can't leave the baby, and stays behind with his friend.

After an army passes by, Willow agrees to help the man trapped in the cage, and he leaves the baby with him.

Walking home, Willow notices the baby has been kidnapped from Madmartigan by the brownies (very little people), and even himself and his friend are attacked and trapped by them. Their leader, the fairy queen, tells them the baby is a princess who's arrival was foretold, who's chosen him, Willow, to help her. The fairy queen gives him a magic wand and sends him to an enchantress.

 

Willow's friend goes home, and continues his adventure with two brownies.

During this time, the evil queen's army is looking for the baby, her daughter leading them. The queen's trusted servant tells her he fears one day her daughter will betray her, to which she replies she's more worried about him betraying her than her own daughter.

Willow and his friends reach a tavern,where they find Madmartigan, who is disguising himself as a woman to escape his lover's husband. He is discovered when the queen's army ransacks the place, and they start chasing them.

The movie kinda bored me, and I found it too long. It also feels to be aimed at kids, but it has certain lines which are not suitable for kids, so..I don't know who is it for, the Star Wars fans, I guess.

I liked the world they created, but it didn't grip me.

The characters have growth, as Madmartigan becomes Willow's friend, and helps him, and the evil queen's daughter falls for him, after he enters her tent while under a love spell, and tells her he loves her, proving the evil queen's servant correct.

Also, everyone keeps on referring to her as a sorcerer, but she never does anything sorcery related, actually when she deals with her mother who uses her powers on everyone, including her, she has no power (she doesn't even attempt to use sorcery, which makes me think she has no powers), so why is she called a sorcerer ?! Maybe they were saying her name, Sorsha! That's what happens when you come up with ridiculous names, you confuse people!

The acting was good. At the beginning I thought the actor playing Willow wasn't that good, but he came around.

The visual effects were good for that era.

The soundtrack by James Horner (who wrote the soundtrack of the movie Titanic), was so and so, as I liked how it started but not where it went.

The movie received mixed reviews with 52% on Rotten Tomatoes and 47 on Metacritic, the critics loving the visual effects but hating the pacing, story and direction. Cinema Score audiences graded the movie an A-.

It grossed 137.6 million dollars against a budget of 35 million.

The movie was nominated for Sound Effects Editing and Visual Effects at the Oscars, but also for 2 Golden Raspberry Awards for Worst Screenplay and Worst Supporting Actor for Billy Barty.

The movie has a board game released in 1988, 3 video games, an American one, published in 1988, and 2 Japanese ones published in 1989; and 2 novels adding more information, plus 3 prequels.

You can watch the movie for free, if you follow this link:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KNfMi10Y6X4

Rating : Could have been a contender!