Once upon a time, a child of predestination is born with a distinctive marking upon her arm, foretelling her destiny to bring about the demise of an evil tyrant, Queen Bavmorda. Knowledgeable of the prophecy, the malevolent Queen hordes pregnant women across the land with hopes of killing the child once she is born.
Just like the story of Moses, a well-meaning caretaker spirits the chosen one of an infant away from the Queen's dungeon and places her in a raft to float down the river to a distant land, assured in the knowledge that one day, Elora will return to liberate the people from oppression.
And that's pretty much where Willow's carbon paper thin plot begins and ends.
Characters like Willow (Warwick Davis) ,Madmartigan (Val Kilmer), and Raziel(Patricia Hayes) enter the picture as the obligatory forces of good, seeking to thwart the efforts of the bad guys to apprehend Elora and destroy her.
The utterly stupid storyline never progresses beyond the premise itself, deteriorating into a tedious succession of action filler as the heroes and villains swap possession of the baby back-and-forth.
Quite frankly, the almost inexplicably positive reception that this movie has received only bodes credibility to the notion that people give less of a hoot about a decent story, and merely look to eat up mounds of meaningless action sequences along with some obligatorily fancy creature effects.
It also perplexes me how many people seem to find the premise of this particular story "compelling", when insofar as the fantasy genre is concerned, the "child of prophecy" foundation is not only completely unoriginal, but one of the oldest and overused gimmicks in the book.
Lame jokes abound the movie's entirety, and Lucasfilm showcases a bloated demonstration of its latest "breakthroughs" in visual effects, which may have appeared impressive for the time, but have ultimately aged horribly over the years.
In one of the movies contrived and lame developments, Joanne Whalley's Sorcha begins the story as one of her mother's entrusted henchwomen, but quickly switches to the "good side" after developing the hots for Madmartigan, who amidst the influences of potion-induced delirium, spouts lame facsimiles of romantic poetry which quickly melt Sorcha's once evil resolve.
Unexplained spurts of arcane elements inadvertently spring various monsters and automatons to life, and ultimately serve no purpose whatsoever other than to showcase another round of Lucasfilm's latest special effects technology.
And so on.
Just as appallingly, in the end, the movie's stupid prophecy doesn't even come true. Elora herself never actually perpetuates the queen's demise, as latter winds up more or less killing herself by accident.
Positive highlights of the movie include James Horner's evocative score, and New Zealand's naturally gorgeous terrain.
Beyond that, Willow easily qualifies as one of the dumbest offerings in the fantasy genre, beaten out only by 2000's utterly atrocious "Dungeons and Dragons".
Just like the story of Moses, a well-meaning caretaker spirits the chosen one of an infant away from the Queen's dungeon and places her in a raft to float down the river to a distant land, assured in the knowledge that one day, Elora will return to liberate the people from oppression.
And that's pretty much where Willow's carbon paper thin plot begins and ends.
Characters like Willow (Warwick Davis) ,Madmartigan (Val Kilmer), and Raziel(Patricia Hayes) enter the picture as the obligatory forces of good, seeking to thwart the efforts of the bad guys to apprehend Elora and destroy her.
The utterly stupid storyline never progresses beyond the premise itself, deteriorating into a tedious succession of action filler as the heroes and villains swap possession of the baby back-and-forth.
Quite frankly, the almost inexplicably positive reception that this movie has received only bodes credibility to the notion that people give less of a hoot about a decent story, and merely look to eat up mounds of meaningless action sequences along with some obligatorily fancy creature effects.
It also perplexes me how many people seem to find the premise of this particular story "compelling", when insofar as the fantasy genre is concerned, the "child of prophecy" foundation is not only completely unoriginal, but one of the oldest and overused gimmicks in the book.
Lame jokes abound the movie's entirety, and Lucasfilm showcases a bloated demonstration of its latest "breakthroughs" in visual effects, which may have appeared impressive for the time, but have ultimately aged horribly over the years.
In one of the movies contrived and lame developments, Joanne Whalley's Sorcha begins the story as one of her mother's entrusted henchwomen, but quickly switches to the "good side" after developing the hots for Madmartigan, who amidst the influences of potion-induced delirium, spouts lame facsimiles of romantic poetry which quickly melt Sorcha's once evil resolve.
Unexplained spurts of arcane elements inadvertently spring various monsters and automatons to life, and ultimately serve no purpose whatsoever other than to showcase another round of Lucasfilm's latest special effects technology.
And so on.
Just as appallingly, in the end, the movie's stupid prophecy doesn't even come true. Elora herself never actually perpetuates the queen's demise, as latter winds up more or less killing herself by accident.
Positive highlights of the movie include James Horner's evocative score, and New Zealand's naturally gorgeous terrain.
Beyond that, Willow easily qualifies as one of the dumbest offerings in the fantasy genre, beaten out only by 2000's utterly atrocious "Dungeons and Dragons".
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