Hot on the heels of Alien and Blade Runner, Ridley Scott dipped his toes into the magical waters of the fairytale adventure genre. Starring a 22-year-old Tom Cruise (Top Gun Maverick) and 16-year-old Mia Sara (Ferris Bueller’s Day Off), Legend is a beautifully filmed (if not particularly complex) allegory about the power of true love and the eternal struggle of good vs. evil.

Legend

Tim Curry and his make-up team turn in a genre-defining performance as Darkness, a classically styled devil or demon who wants to kill the embodiment of love and Light, a pair of mated unicorns, thereby giving himself dominion over the world. Unfortunately for him, the unicorns will only show themselves to those who are pure of heart, who enter Cruise’s Jack and Sara’s Lili. Jack is a young forest-dwelling hermit, and Lili is a princess fascinated with him. In the name of true love, Jack (being pure of heart) decides to show Lili the unicorns.

Unbeknownst to Jack, Darkness has been waiting for just such an opportunity. A trap is set, tragedy ensues, and Jack must begin a quest to save the world and Lili from Darkness.

Filmed at the world’s second-largest soundstage, the 007 Soundstage in Buckinghamshire, England, Legend is rich with fantastic and magical visuals. There’s not a moment of screen time that isn’t full of captivating or beautiful imagery, and often both. Rob Bottin (The Thing, Twilight Zone: The Movie, Robocop, Total Recall, Game of Thrones) and his special make-up effects studio bring Darkness and the other creatures of Legend to life in a way not equaled until 15 years later when Weta Digital and Andy Serkis would delight audiences with 2001’s The Lord of The Rings, and its subsequent sequels.

Cruise puts forth what is now known to be his typically solid performance, but the real standouts in this film are Mia Sara and Tim Curry. I’ve always found Curry to be an interesting performer. For a diminutive guy (5′ 9″), he has a large and commanding presence. Left unchecked by lesser directors, he can easily be allowed to go too big and come across as melodramatic, but when underneath who knows how many pounds of Darkness makeup, this grand presence was precisely perfect for Legend. Between the exquisite prosthetics and Curry’s sensuality, he is absolutely entrancing in every scene.

You would never know that Legend was Mia’s film debut. She outshines Cruise, who already had movies like Taps and Risky Business under his belt, and easily stands toe to cloven hoof with Curry. After Legend and Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, Sara did some sporadic TV work and not much else. While it seems like she might have retired from acting in order to raise a family, and that is most definitely the right decision when possible, the buttery popcorn munchers of the world were most certainly robbed of some potential box office magic for it.

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