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Saint George and the Eighties. The kingdom is marauded by a dragon, "horns, tail, wings and clawed feet," perhaps the last of its kind. The beast spares villagers in exchange for sacrificial virgins, its introduction is enhanced from Gilliam's Jabberwocky, the ascending POV-crane that unloads a burst of flames unto the cornered victim. The last wizard (Ralph Richardson) is summoned to vanquish it but dies proving his powers, his apprentice (Peter MacNicol) takes over the journey, uneasily. "Magic, magicians... It's all fading from the world, dying out." A long way from Lang's Siegfreid, the mourning of medieval sorcery as Christianity takes over. As envisioned by Matthew Robbins, an elegy also for the previous decade of cynical grit, thus a Disney fantasy shorn of counterfeit innocence. The vehement monk (Ian McDiarmid) who foolishly confronts the behemoth with crucifix and verses is promptly incinerated, the Princess (Chloe Salaman) who makes a noble sacrifice ends up munched on by animatronic goblins. (The callow hero much prefers Caitlin Clarke's plebeian tomboy, a scrappy peasant in laddish drag.) "Glad to see you, too," says the magus to his pupil upon resurrection, the profound drollery of Richardson's incantatory gestures nearly matched by the Christopher Guest-like deadpan of Peter Eyre as the King ("I've always had the greatest admiration for you chaps with your... mysterious skills.") Majestic Scottish locations vibrating to Alex North's grand score, melancholy symphony to the barmy opera of Boorman's Excalibur. A showdown during the climactic eclipse for the boy-wizard, whose path to adulthood involves the slaying of foe and mentor in the same blow. Politics and religion join hands over the monster's smoldering carcass, the only hope for the burgeoning artist is to hang on to a little magic along the way. With John Hallam, Albert Salmi, Emrys James, and Sydney Bromley.
--- Fernando F. Croce |