Willow

Willow (1988)

Director: Ron Howard

Writers: George Lucas (story), Bob Dolman (screenplay)

Cast: Val Kilmer, Joanne Whalley, Warwick Davis, Jean Marsh, Patricia Hayes, Billy Barty, Pat Roach, Gavan O'Herlihy, Mark Northover, Kevin Pollack, Rick Overton

Synopsis:

One morning while tilling his fields, Willow Ufgood's (Davis) children discover a baby girl floating in the river. His family decides to take the child in but things go awry when a terrifying dog-like creature attacks Willow's village. The village council and the wizard The High Aldwin (Barty) decide that its too dangerous for the baby to stay in the village and task Willow with returning her to her own people. On his journey Willow learns that the baby is Elora Danan, a child of prophecy who is destined to bring about the end of the evil sorceress Queen Bavmorda (Marsh). It is Bavmorda who is searching for the baby and has dispatched her daughter Sorsha (Whalley) and the commander of her armies, General Kael (Roach) to bring the child back so she can be sacrificed in a vile ritual. Along with his allies: the swordsman Madmartigan (Kilmer), sorceress fin Raziel (Hayes) and the Brownies Franjean (Overton) and Rool (Pollack) Willow takes it upon himself to protect Elora from Bavmorda and travel to the castle Tir Asleen where she will be safe.

First Impressions:

By the time Willow was released I was already into the fantasy genre. Unfortunately, there weren't a lot of fantasy movies at the time that were appropriate for an 11 year old, unless you counted certain Disney animated movies which I didn't like (too much singing). I wasn't able to see this one in the theaters because the Satanic Panic was in full swing at the time and my mother wouldn't dare let me see such a film. Fortunately, I managed to watch it a friends house on video not long after and I was mesmerized by the film. I hadn't really seen anything like it before. Of course, I'd already seen Ralph Bakshi's animated Lord of the Rings, but that was a cartoon, this was live action and I was thoroughly taken by it. I'd watched a few more times in the intervening years but I probably hadn't seen it in more than a decade when I picked up on Blu-Ray a few years ago. It's not a film I go back to often, unless I'm in a nostalgic mood. Let's see how it holds up.

Story/Direction:

"Magic is the bloodstream of the universe. Forget all you know, or think you know."

 The story for Willow is really a tale of two tones that don't really gel well together. The film combines a lot of infantile humor that appeals to children with a lot of dark imagery and scenes that would likely scare most children. When done well, combining kid-friendly moments with more adult-themes can lead to a fun movie experience. Unfortunately, it wasn't don't particularly well in this film and that's a real shame because there's potential here. Now, I'm not against having humor in darker movies. In fact, I think it's necessary in some ways to provide moments of lightness to offer the audience a break from all the grim. However, the humor needs to match the tone of the story and that's where Willow comes up short. If the filmmakers had resorted to a more subtle type of humor, perhaps the comic scenes wouldn't have felt so jarring when played after the more intense ones. This is a line George Lucas was able to walk fairly well in the original Star Wars trilogy but struggled with in subsequent films, including this one. 

As for the plot itself, it's full of common fantasy tropes, which I don't really have a problem with. I mean, tropes are tropes because they're proven to work. It's pretty clear when devising the story that Lucas drew from much of the same inspirations as he did with his seminal Space Opera. In fact, there are a lot of parallels between this film and the Star Wars trilogy. You have the everyman hero thrust into a dangerous wide world, the lovable scoundrel and, of course, a princess. Now, it's not all direct parallels, mind you, and Lucas took care to change things up enough that it wasn't rehashing those films in a medieval skin. This is really where the disappointment in this movie is for me. It had potential to be one of the first truly good fantasy films but it just couldn't decide what kind of audience it wanted to appeal to.

Acting/Characters:

Let's start out with the film's protagonist, Willow played by Warwick Davis. This was Davis' first starring role in a film who impressed Lucas when he played an Ewok in Return of the Jedi a few years earlier. I don't want to come too harsh here because Davis was only 18 years old at the time but his performance was a bit uneven. I think he did well in the film's quieter movements but when the scene called for more intense emotions, Davis tended to come off a bit hammy. It seemed to me that in those moments when Willow was angry or frightened that Davis was forcing things a bit and it made his delivery seem more appropriate for a TV commercial rather than a feature film.

The opposite could be said of Val Kilmer's performance as the incurable rogue, Madmartigan. This role was clearly meant by Lucas to be a Han Solo analogue and Kilmer was the perfect casting for it. He plays Madmartigan with the cockiness and irreverence that makes him easy to root for. He also has the most interesting character arc in the film. It's always tricky to cast genre films because sometimes the actors don't take the material seriously and often mail the performance in. This wasn't the case with Kilmer and he really seemed to be enjoying himself in the role.

The rest of the cast is a bit of a mish-mash. Joanne Whalley is good as Sorsha and she's given a bit more to do than many female leads would have been given at the time but in the end, she was still relegated to a love interest and nothing more. Jean Marsh had no trouble pulling off the evil witch persona as the film's antagonist Bavmorda. Kevin Pollack and Rick Overton do a good job as the mischievous Brownies Rool and Franjean, respectively. The problem with those two is that they're the source of much of the comic moments that didn't gel well with the rest of the film, so I can't give them full kudos for their performances. 

Visuals/Action:

For the time, the visual effects in Willow were pretty good. They didn't rise to the level of Star Wars but they did the job. Nowadays, viewing the film in high-definition the special effects look pretty dated. Interestingly, this could be one of those films that actually would benefit from having a Special edition release with some cleaned up SFX and make a bit of CGI to make it all look a little less fake. But, for the technology they had available at the time, the effects get a pass from me. Well...except for the trolls. They kind of shat the bed with the look of the trolls. One interesting things about the effects in the film was that it was one of the first movies to utilize CGI morphing technology. It looks a little clunky in this day and age but back then it was pretty amazing to look at.

The action, on the other had, is very good and definitely a high point of the film. The audience is treated to a number of exciting set pieces, including a chase down a mountainside and a couple of pretty cool large-ish-scale battles. The action high point for me, though, was a very well done chase involving a horse drawn wagon. All in all, the action in the film was well done.

Music:

The music, composed by James Horner, is another one of the film's strong points. It has a terrific heroic theme that I've been absently humming all week. I was a bit surprised that John Williams didn't handle composing chores as he often worked with Lucas but Horner did an excellent job and I think it's one of his more underrated scores. for me the film's music gets an A+.

Final Verdict:

This is a tough one for me because Willow holds a lot of sentimental value for me. If I take off the nostalgia goggles and view it from an objective viewpoint, it's probably a mediocre film at best. However, there's some good stuff in there and its still a fun little movie worth checking out. Just don't expect too much out of it.