Viking Night: Krull
By Bruce Hall
October 18, 2011
BoxOfficeProphets.com
What I’m talking about is the kind of film that might not make you ask for the two hours back, but you probably wouldn’t mind having them anyway. It doesn’t mean they’re not good movies. It just means they’re not bad - they’re badly mediocre. And if you subscribe to the lowest common denominator school of film making, all you have to do to transcend this is to put an inordinate amount of effort into one area of the film over anything else. Sometimes this means a screenwriter or director pours years of life experience into getting the story just right. For better or worse, the project ends up being an intense labor of love. But most of the time, it means just spending a crap load on special effects and sticking a plot together out of refrigerator magnets.
Which reminds me - I just sat through Krull again, and it wasn’t easy. But there are a few good things worth immediate mention, before we get to all the things that suck about it.
The first would be composer James Horner’s score, which adds significant weight to a largely lightweight story. He’s not John Williams, and he does recycle a lot of his own themes and motifs, but it’s definitely better music than the film deserves. Observation #2 is Liam Neeson. It’s early in his career, and he only has a small supporting role with perhaps three spoken lines (one being “Ahhhhhhh!!!!!” when he dies). But much like Angelina Jolie in Cyborg, his ability to emote separates him from the lesser actors around him. Third, I’d like to point out every time I see Krull, I find myself amazed at how well the visual effects hold up. Not that you’d mistake it for Avatar, but considering the ridiculous cash that went into the sets and visuals, the makers of Krull definitely got their money’s worth. Credible estimates of the budget are in the $25-40 million range, and most of that money is up on screen. But back in 1983, that was an extravagant budget - enough to require a major box office hit.
Oops. And here is where the problems begin.
Krull the movie takes place on Krull the planet, which is currently under invasion. A horrific race of beings called The Slayers travels the galaxy in a mountain shaped warship, enslaving civilizations under the gauntlet of their all powerful leader, The Beast. That’s right, the protagonists are called “The Slayers” and “The Beast”. Krull didn’t even have the decency to give its villains names, and that’s just never a good sign. What we do have is a despotic villain clad in black armor with an army of slow, stupid, faceless thugs at his disposal. They take over planets and kidnap princesses at will. Seriously, stop me if you’ve heard this one because I don’t want to get sued by George Lucas, and I still have to tell you about the Prophecy. Yes, of course there’s an ancient Prophecy. And of course it involves a son of unusual parentage and the fate of the entire universe.
Have I mentioned this movie is derivative?
The planet Krull is ruled by the fair Princess Lyssa (Lysette Anthony, whose poodle hair dates the film) and handsome Prince Colwyn (Ken Marshall; so dashing you hardly notice he can’t act), who are about to marry and unite their world against the Slayers. The Prophecy here is that their marriage will secure victory over the Slayers, and their son would one day rule the galaxy. This is bad news for the Slayers, since it puts them out of the picture. And The Beast, of course, is just not down with that. So, can you guess what happens next? That’s right, the Slayers crash the worst defended Royal Wedding in history and completely wreck the joint. Corwyn survives, and Lyssa is captured. Everyone else finds out why Slayers are called Slayers.
Corwyn is discovered by an elderly sage named Ynyr (Freddie Jones). Ynyr is a prickly hermit endowed with mysterious wisdom, who has shunned society on the off chance that he’ll one day be called upon to fulfill an ancient Prophecy. People no doubt once laughed at him for his talk of ancient legends, and for living off the grid like a paranoid freak. Now, those people are all dead. Eager to avoid the same fate, Ynyr reminds Corwyn that it’s unwise to try and fulfill a prophecy without a super-magical weapon.
Thus, they set out to retrieve the mythical “Glaive” from its highly inaccessible and incredibly dangerous mountaintop repose. The Glaive is the only weapon that can defeat The Beast, and the mountain around it is so famously deadly that it doesn’t have a name. I won’t spoil the scene for you, but I will say that if you’ve read The Lord of The Rings, you’ll be tempted to call it Mount Doom.
Have I mentioned this movie is derivative?
Far be it from me to second guess, but based on my analysis of the Slayers’ wedding crashing technique, I see a flaw here. What’s needed here isn’t one guy with a magical metal pinwheel, but a thousand guys with guns. You know, like the kind the Slayers have - the kind that make you look stupid for having a sword. I guess they could have taken the movie in a more original direction, but that would have taken all the Krully goodness out of it.
So instead, Corwyn assembles a rag-tag group of thieves, some muscle, a guy with a bow and one eccentric wizard for comic relief. They form a travelling party where each man has specialized skills that are useful in just one specific situation, after which they will surely die. And, Corwyn has a Glaive of Charisma +1.
Together, they set off to find The Beast, rescue the princess, blah blah blah. I’m sure you know what I’m about to say, but to call Krull “derivative” isn’t really even fair. Let’s call it “shameless” instead.
How do movies like this come to be? Some suit sticks his finger in the wind, samples what the kids like “nowadays” and greenlights two hours of lavish, dispirited eye candy in response. It’s like serving up a half baked blob of batter covered with the best frosting ever and calling it a birthday cake. Krull is tasty on the outside and nothing but grainy, lukewarm mush underneath. It’s not half as watchable as Star Wars and it lacks the spontaneous originality of D&D. On the upside it is relatively well paced (unlike everything Tolkien ever wrote), has a really cool title and packs enough genuinely intriguing visual appeal to distract you from the bad dialogue. The sadness is that with just a little bit more effort, this could have been a very decent movie. It’s not that Krull is mind-bendingly awful or anything. It’s just frustrating; like an unambitious 13-year-old who excels at getting ahead in life without trying.
Everything is derivative - you’ll never find a story whose themes are entirely those of the person who wrote it. But Krull is a hard core offender that doesn’t just wear its influences on its sleeve - it openly mimics them. It’s a dyed in the wool genre picture with such a distinctly campy feel that it might have worked better as a comedy. Still, it runs through its paces with zest and efficiency. Its visual effects are pretty solid - for the time. And it’s almost pointless to fault a film for being uninventive when there’s never any real attempt to hide it. besides, aren’t most classic Kung Fu pictures pretty formulaic? But if you like them, you watch them precisely because you like the formula, and your level of enjoyment depends entirely on the quality of execution.
I’d say that Krull executes well enough for a single viewing. It is barely clever enough to entertain teens, silly enough to delight smaller kids and not quite too stupid to make adults regret watching, provided they have a sense of humor. But whether you love it, hate it, or anything in between, I doubt you’ll feel inclined to watch it more than once. I have, and it makes you feel any better, I didn’t really suffer. Much.