Movie Krullers,
Last week we watched KRULL! A movie that I was sure I had seen before since I knew what that silly Krull blade was my entire life. But I was wrong. I may have been confusing it with Kull the Conqueror. My recap is fueled by wikipedia since I missed large sections of the movie dealing with a cranky baby.
So… In a galaxy far far away… a giant space castle lands on a planet. Named KRULL apparently. Alien soldiers called slayers pour out of it and murderize anyone across the land. Two kingdoms decide to join forces through marriage and fight back. The princess is a smoking hot redhead who we do not see enough of in the movie. The prince is a tight pants wearing feathered haired ninny who would be more at home selling you bootleg John Denver cassettes out of the back of his Trans Am in a Denny’s parking lot. But it’s true love at first arranged marriage. They are in the middle of some kind of fire ceremony when the slayers attack the castle. I’m sure this won’t be a major plot point later because they don’t explain it.
They red wedding the hell out of everyone and take the princess.
Prince tight pants is the only one not killed in the battle. He’s rescued by an old traveller, who tells him about an ancient weapon. By ‘Tells him’ he literally just says “hey it’s up there”! That’s enough information to get the prince to stick his hand in a pool of lava. Which works… for reasons.
This is where my recollection of the movie is a little thin. But I know they gather a group of thieves which includes a young Hagrid and the Liam Neesons. They eventually have to go to the Green Wizard to ask where the black castle will appear in at sunrise. Because this is a thing that happens.
As this seems to be a big section of the movie there’s probably some important parts that happen here, but all I remember is the fire swam and that they meet my favorite character. One-eye McCyclops Face who is only sort of interested in joining the group.
They find the location of the castle and agree to attack it. One by one the group is killed through heroic sacrifices. Except for that one guy who just gets sniped off the bridge, fuck that guy, right! So they can’t breach the dome holding the princess so the Prince finally decides to use the Glaive! Which is a big let down since he just lofts it out like Sigfried making a audience member disappear. The Glaive does all the work. But then they have awakened THE BEAST.
It worked before, so why would I not use this spinning blade again? It gives the beast a tiny cut on his arm and then (in a scene that takes way to long) it gets stuck? or something. My bet is that it just got tired of doing all the work and was like fuck it, put me back in the lava.
But OH NOES! The beast isn’t dead! Without the Krull blade god-mode weapon they’re helpless! But then they remember that their wedding vows turn then into a nuclear blast furnace of firestarting power. They procede to smack this bitch up with hand fire power. So simple!
Questions. I have a few. I realize that most of these can be answered by ‘It’s just a shitty movie’ but if we took that for an answer where would the internet be!
- If the wedding was to form an alliance between the two kingdoms to battle against the slayers. How effective was it, they were almost wiped out at the wedding.
- Do the Krulleans swords make red lightning? or is that just the armour of the slayers.
- The slayers have laser guns but are defeated by guys with swords and axes?
- Why do they even take the princess? It’s revealed that the bad guy is a giant alien devil who looks like “Mac and Me” mixed with a female Predator. It can’t be rape… I bet it’s rape.
- Has noone ever done the fire hand thing before? Is this the power of love?
- Why are the some of the shots so long?
- This guy made Bullitt!?
Movie Facts:
- Directed by Peter Yates (Bullitt, Breaking Away) like most of the films on our list it was hard to recover from. He never made another great movie.
- The film was one of the most expensive of its time. $45–50 million
- The film score was composed by James Horner and performed by The London Symphony Orchestra (one of the best parts of the movie.)
- Box Office : $16.5 million
Reading the wikipedia entry I get the feeling that this movie should be better. I think the reasons might be that you never get to know much about the world. It’s clearly a magical world, but you never know the rules. Who has fire power? Who is magic? What are the extent of their powers. The side characters are all more interesting than the prince, which is never good. The effects shots are kind of static, how many times do we see the prince just standing there with his hand out. We get it.
Sorry for the long recap, I really got on a roll!
This week is Billy D’s pick. It looks like he’s sent out some options which seem to be following Chris Johnson’s recommendation of “Why can’t we just watch a good movie?”
830 thursday, I’ll be there.
-Mark
Krull is a 1983 science fantasy swashbuckler film[3] directed by Peter Yates and written by Stanford Sherman. It follows a journey of Prince Colwyn and his group of outlaws on the planet Krull to save future queen Princess Lyssa from the Beast and his constantly teleporting Black Fortress.
The film stars an ensemble cast: Ken Marshall as Prince Colwyn, Lysette Anthony as Princess Lyssa, Trevor Martin as the voice of the Beast, Freddie Jones as Ynyr, Bernard Bresslaw as Rell the Cyclops, David Battley as Ergo the Magnificent, Tony Church and Bernard Archard as kings and the fathers of Colwyn and Lyssa, Alun Armstrong as the leader of a group of bandits that include early screen roles for actors Liam Neeson and Robbie Coltrane, John Welsh as The Emerald Seer, Graham McGrath as Titch, and Francesca Annis as The Widow of the Web.
Development on the film began in 1980, when Columbia Pictures president Frank Price gave producer Ron Silverman the idea to produce a fantasy film. Krull underwent a very expensive, harsh, and dangerous production process. The film's huge budget ballooned, mainly due to the designers having to make numerous alterations to the sets corresponding to the heavily evolving script. The movie was shot at several sound stages at Pinewood Studios. Actors such as Marshall, Bresslaw and Jones performed dangerous stunts during filming.
An international co-production of the United Kingdom and the United States, Krull was released in July 1983. The film was a box-office bomb upon release, and critical opinion has been mixed, both upon release and in retrospect. Numerous reviewers have highlighted its visual effects and soundtrack, while several critics have criticized its plot as being derivative and nonsensical. The film has gone on to achieve cult film status.[4]
Source : Wikipedia
