ack is a child of the forest, on good terms with all the animals and more than half-wild himself. Dirty, athletic and clad in rags and leaves, he is in love with Lily, a well-born and exquisitely coifed young woman who shares his innocence and enthusiasm for the woods. In Legend, this purity of spirit very nearly leads to the couple's downfall when, as a gesture of love, Jack takes Lily to see the two unicorns who live in the deepest part of the forest.
Despite taking other precautions as they approach the unicorns, Jack forgets to mention that the animals are sacred: Humans are not allowed to touch them. Lily can't quite resist the urge to make contact, and trouble quickly follows. A gang of goblins has been following the pair, hoping Lily would lead them to the unicorns. In short order they have poisoned the stallion and cut off its horn. A terrible blizzard immediately envelops the woods, separating the young lovers.
The goblins are henchmen of the Lord of Darkness, whose reason for sending them on a unicorn hunt is simple: Eradicating them will also rid the world of the daylight he detests. With the male unicorn down, the surviving mare is the only thing ensuring sunrise. Lily tries to protect the creature, but she and the unicorn are captured and taken down to the hellish underworld where the goblins make their home. It is left to Jack and the forest's various elves and pixies to mount a rescue before Darkness can sacrifice the unicorn and claim Lily as his bride.
A visual feast for fantasy fans
Romantic, dark and visually sumptuous, the 1985 film Legend features a young Tom Cruise as Jack and Mia Sara (who had a recent memorable turn as Harley Quinn on the short-lived TV series Birds of Prey) as Lily. The true star of the film, though, is Tim Curry as Darkness, an ebony-horned and hooved demon with red skin and a chilling laugh. As he so often does, Curry steals the show, creating a villain whose evil deeds seem that much blacker because of his obvious ennui and self-loathing.
Legend's plot is wafer-thin, and its special effects lack flash when stacked up against more modern CGI-heavy films, but Ridley Scott's direction more than compensates for the soft areas in the film. This picture is like a waking dream, a window into a squeaky-clean medieval Europe that never existed, where everyone but the goblins is well-fed, healthy and gorgeous. The images of Jack's forest, both before and after the snowfall, are breathtaking. Even the underworld has flashes of mordant beauty, and the viewer's sense of having fallen into a fairy tale is incredibly strong.
The late '80s produced a bumper crop of fantasy films, and when stacked against its contemporaries, Legend comes off quite well. Its story is less contrived than that of Labyrinth, for example, though of course it lacks that picture's saving grace—its songs. Legend features an anachronistic electronic soundtrack, like Ladyhawke, but the odd combination of synthesizer and panpipes meshes more seamlessly with the petal-strewn wonder of the unicorns' forest. The movie may lack the fast pace and suspense of Willow or The Princess Bride, but it is less precious than either film, and where Legend lacks depth it instead offers romance, goodwill and top-notch family entertainment. The timelessness of its setting and visual aesthetic have created a movie that is aging well, one that will continue to appeal to fantasy viewers of all ages.
