Robin, Miserable and Alone at the Movies: Willow

Have you fine folks ever seen Willow? No? Good. Keep it that way. It’s no secret that to this day, I absolutely adore Dragon Heart. I’ve even got a soft spot for those lame, corny, trippy animated versions of the Hobbit and the Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe from the 60s. But shit, son. Dragon Heart was probably the only decent high fantasy movie not based on a book I’ve ever seen. The Hobbit works because it’s so dumb a small child can watch it and be barely cognizant of how it’s different from Looney Tunes. Being familiar with Leonard Nimoy’s Musical career, which includes the absolutely brilliant Ballad of Bilbo Baggins helps a lot.

By contrast, Willow is just plain ill conceived. Where Dragon Heart had good actors, some fun lines, phenomenal effects that hold up to this day, a clear, discernible, logically coherent plot, and only a few minor drops into nonsensical childish “humor” that detracts from a very simple and very touching storyline about an aging and cynical knight having to lead a peasant rebellion against a king who he trained and thus feels responsible for when said king becomes a tyrant, Willow comes at you at 15 cliches a minute. Somehow it still manages to make no sense at all. Let’s be clear, it’s never a good sign if a movie needs one of those text openings to set the scenario. Sure, okay. Terminator did it and was okay. And Star Wars did it and was a huge hit. But usually, that shit’s reserved for Conan the Barbarian. Do you want your movie compared to Conan the Barbarian? I think not. But, oh hey, Willow was made by George Lucas. Perhaps when he realized that Star Wars was not a Space Opera but a fantasy with swords made out of lasers, he figured he could just transplant it whole. Not a good idea. Did I mention the main character is played by the midget who played Wicket, the Ewok? And seriously, the number two villain, General Kael looks like Skeletor. How am I supposed to take that seriously? And you know what? That makes Willow the live action He-Man movie. Starring Orko, that annoying deformed useless gu rather than He-Man. Not a good start, really.

Let’s go through this quick- Fantasy about “little people” who are totally useless and annoying. Okay, so Lucas never hear of Tolkien. Fine. Whatever. Half the cast disappears after act I even though they hadn’t done anything yet. Okay, so you’re just weighing us down. Several other characters, two brownies in particular also stick around the whole movie despite never being useful. For that matter, the entire plot boils down to “Prophesized baby will destroy evil witch-queen.” So the baby is always there and, surprise, never does anything. In fact, Willow destroys the witch-queen in the first and last useful thing he ever does. So what the hell was the movie about? The prophecy was wrong. The child wasn’t special. She didn’t lift a finger. Then, the characters that are there have no real motivation, and they act almost randomly.

Take especially the romance between Madmortigan (played very poorly by Val Kilmer and is still probably the best acting in the movie. Barf) and Sorsha, the evil witch-queen's daughter (and despite my love of red headed swordswomen, Sorsha did nothing for me). Straight from the beginning, they flat out tell you that the Witch-Queen KNOWS that Sorsha will ultimately betray her and movie logic dictates that she will do so for love and not because her mother is a sociopathic, paranoid tyrant who would happily kill her for no good reason. Somewhere around the time Madmortigan says “I don’t love her, she kicked me in the face.” (and she did! One of very few redeeming moments) he realizes it isn’t true, he does lover her. For her part, she just can’t control her hormones anymore and starts making out with him on a battlefield after he totally slaughters all the men under her command. Because nothing says I love you like the warm spray of blood and flying gooey gobits of your right hand man.

But it’s hardly the first random Madmortigan development. He goes from incompetent asshole to superhuman dashing hero in about 3 seconds. And he’s still the best part of the movie. You know how sad that is? And you want to know why? Well, it all comes from the part where he slices three or four guys to ribbons, smiles his roguish smile, then slips on the ice and falls flat on his stupid pretty boy face. To quote Slappy Squirrel, “Now that’s entertainment.” The rest of the movie can go hang.