A young man must stop the Lord of Darkness from both destroying daylight and marrying the woman he loves.

“Legend”

Directed by Ridley Scott

“Legend,” or as I like to call it, “boring shit with cotton blowing around,” is easily the most lame, ugly, and stupid movie in the Ridley Scott filmography.

I have never seen a fantasy film that felt smaller than this one in my entire life. There are so few characters and the sets feel so shrunken that it was almost claustrophobic. In all great films of this genre, the one thing that makes all of them stand out is the ability to create wonder. The viewer needs to not only feel like the world could possibly exist but they need to feel the awe of strange and unique surprises that couldn’t happen in everyday life. Legend not only fails to amaze but it doesn’t even draw interest. There are no big towns, long quests, interesting locales, or characters that we even give half a shit about. So, what point is there to watching it?

I have one positive thing to say: the makeup. Technical wizard Rob Bottin (John Carpenter’s The Thing) creates some of his best work ever here. All non-humans are completely unrecognizable and reflect fictional characters in a believable way. A few standouts are both the Troll King(who looks like Satan) and a green witch who comes across as more than creepy.

It’s all completely wasted though. The lame premise that somehow a unicorn holds the entire key to preserving environmental stability isn’t just lame, it’s downright stupid. After that we’re subjected to the stale and obvious “I kidnapped your woman. Come and get her” plot that has been done to death, Tom Cruise just walks around with ugly midgets who have no clue what to do and no way to convince an audience that they have any ability to pull it off.

I could have even gone along for the ride if there was something other than the fake looking snow, cotton blowing around, or horses running in slow motion to keep my visual interest. Another problem I had was how this turd really feels like you’re on a sound stage. Everywhere I looked I felt like I was going to catch a glimpse of dolly track or a mic hanging down. It just doesn’t create a convincing fantasy world. Also, Tom Cruise’s character really sucks and his performance is terrible. When he isn’t staring all lovey dovey into his girlfriend’s eyes, he looks spaced out and bored.

This film is the utter definition of a waste of time. There’s far better things you can do with 2 hours of your life…