"This, it was given to me to know...that many worlds have been enslaved by the Beast and his army, the Slayers. And this, too, was given me to know...that the Beast would come to our world, the world of Krull, and his Black Fortress would be seen in the land. That the smoke of burning villages would darken the sky, and the cries of the dying echo through deserted valleys. But one thing I cannot know, whether the prophecy be true, that a girl of ancient name shall become queen, that she shall choose a king, and that together they shall rule our world, and that their son shall rule the galaxy."Thus begins the epic of Krull, one of the many many films made in the wake of the success of Star Wars and trying to invoke the same feel without nearly as much of the set up. If, in particular, you decided to TL;DR that quote from the film, then I'm afraid to tell you you better get used to much, much more of it.
Don't get me wrong, I absolutely love this movie. It just never bothers to explain anything about the background information. What background information we are given is as follows: on a planet named Krull, an entity known as the Beast has arrived to conquer everything. Two rival kingdoms seek to form an alliance by marriage, Prince Colwyn and Princess Lyssa will wed. As the prophecy says, a girl of ancient name will become Queen, she will choose a king, and together they shall rule the world of Krull.
Needless to say, the Beast has more than a few reservations about this and, without one, decides to crash the wedding.
Both armies get wrecked, the kings are killed, Colwyn is left near-death, and Lyssa is kidnapped by the Beast Super Mario style. Needless to say, the reception is definitely a bummer. An old, definitely not Obi-Wan Kenobi-type man arrives, Ynyr, who takes Colwyn from the ruins of the castle to seek a mystical weapon known as the Glaive. It's an ancient, five-bladed star that is purported to be an ancient and powerful weapon from Krull's history.
Colwyn is only able to get this after an almost three minute scene of him climbing a mountain.
...no, I'm not kidding. This actually happens.
There's actually a few scenes in Krull that drag on for longer than they're welcome, mostly travel scenes. And traveling they do indeed go on, Colwyn meets a colorful band of characters like Rell the Cyclops, Torquil and his group of bandits (including Liam Neeson and Robbie Coltrane!), and my personal favorite character in the film - Ergo the Magnificent. Ergo is a coarse man with an overblown sense of ego who has all the powers of wizardry and, while a coward, he's ultimately a good-hearted individual, if a bit of a complete asshole.
I can't imagine why I identify with him.
Also, if you're wondering where you've seen him from, he's Charlie's teacher from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. It took me forever to remember where I'd seen his actor, David Battley, before and I nearly flipped a table when I finally figured it out.
Now that we've gotten past this moment of MadCap being embarrassingly thick, we can get to what Colwyn and the rest of his D&D party have to do - seek out the Beast's Black Fortress. Unfortunately, because the DM is feeling a little bit vengeful about having to manage so many PC's, the Black Fortress has a nasty habit of moving every morning at dawn and it's never in the same place twice. This makes one wonder exactly how big Krull is, but that is the task before them.
If they don't get to the Black Fortress in time, the Beast could very well corrupt Lyssa and have his new Queen as he conquers Krull and, it would seem, the galaxy.
As far as set ups and characters go, this film is basically perfect. It's going for an epic sword and sorcery tale, and we definitely get it. There are swords (and axes, spears, bo staves, bows, etc.) and magic aplenty and there's a sense of wonder and adventure about everything with only one particularly glaring problem - people keep referencing events that we have absolutely no clue about or reference for.
We are told about certain things, and Krull expects us to go along with them as though they're common knowledge. The best parallel I can think of for this is if you were suddenly watching The Empire Strikes Back without ever having seen A New Hope, and the scene with the opening crawl was cut leading right into Vader and the Empire seeking out Hoth.
You'd have no idea who Vader is, why he's pursuing our heroes, who our heroes are, or anything about what led into these events. Krull provides bits and pieces, but never anything of substance. While we can draw conclusions (and, believe me, people have), it's not something your average movie-goer is going to bother to do. They'll just be confused, as am I when I attempt to analyze this film without going into fanwank territory.
Again, don't get me wrong, I love this movie. It has amazing special effects for the time (Ergo's transformations in particular still look good even in 2020). It has a stock plot, sure, but it's carried by likable characters and a fun tone overall. It's a tale of heroism and battling against the impossible odds imposed on them by the forces of darkness, but never in such a way that victories feel cheap or by any means easy. The action set-pieces are great and pretty well done (again, for the time) and the special effects still mostly hold up even today.
I just wish that anything about the history would be explained or expanded on in some way. So many things are brought up simply for plot convenience, maybe a line or two about some distant event about them, and then are never mentioned again. And yes, this even includes the Glaive. Like my metaphor previously said, it's essentially like being thrown into the fifth film of a series without ever having seen the previous four parts or having any idea about them at all.
That being said, Krull is an absolutely fun ride. There's some moments that drag on for too long or a bit of hokey acting here or there, or a moment of absolute confusion, but it's also got loveable characters, memorable lines and moments, and (as much as the phrase gets misused) is definitely a feel-good adventure. Capped off by a score by the late, great James Horner (which always gets points from me in a film), it's something I'd pop in any time.
Krull is brought to us by Columbia Pictures.
For the latest from the MadCapMunchkin, be sure to follow him on Twitter @MadCapMunchkin.
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