Mia Sara

(Cineplex Streaming, December 2019) Coming toward the end of the 1980s fantasy boom, Legend has the hallmarks of a Ridley Scott production: The story is serviceable at best, but the visual polish of the film is almost enough to make us forget about the narrative. Tom Cruise stars as a young man searching for a princess (Mia Sara, unremarkable) that has been kidnapped by a demon (Tim Curry, intensely remarkable). Clearly executed with a fairy-tale tone, the film is first about images and secondarily about everything else: the characters are usually archetypical (with a few twists), the dialogue is out of fantasy central, and the episodic structure gets stronger the closer we get to getting things done. Still, it’s worth a look for anyone looking at the way 1980s fantasy films were able to work around practical special effects limitations, or how Curry can chew scenery with big horns, or how a rather young Tom Cruise did in such a production.