"Willow" follows a lot of the basic high fantasy tropes. There are wizards, elves, a dark lord and a prophecy about a chosen one destined to defeat the dark lord. What helps "Willow" stand out is that the "chosen one" is still a baby. With the dark lord knowing the prophecy, she pulls a Ramses and decrees to search all babies for the chosen one. Through means of trying to hide the baby, she ends up in the hands of Willow. So, the focus of the story is not on "The chosen one" but instead the random person who happened to stumble into the situation. That is an interesting twist. Willow, himself is never mentioned in the prophecy, he just is the one taking care of the chosen baby.
But man, this movie makes a lot of strange decisions. It can become very clear that this was written by George Lucas. The story begins by putting a fellowship of characters together, only to have the group break up about two scenes later.
It is difficult to grasp how the rules of this world work. There is one scene where the evil wizard just turns everyone into pigs, why couldn't she just use that power to begin with? There is a plot point where a love potion is used on a character, and they do the good old Bond style of: kiss her until she likes it. There are a lot of obnoxious side characters and they get far too much screen time. The story takes back seat for a long stretch of the movie and it chooses the oddest things to focus on.
There are bonus points of originality, but boy is it ever strange. I can see it being some people's favorite movie, but for me it is too unfocused, confusing and filled with annoying characters. There is a little magic, but it falls short of coming together.
But man, this movie makes a lot of strange decisions. It can become very clear that this was written by George Lucas. The story begins by putting a fellowship of characters together, only to have the group break up about two scenes later.
It is difficult to grasp how the rules of this world work. There is one scene where the evil wizard just turns everyone into pigs, why couldn't she just use that power to begin with? There is a plot point where a love potion is used on a character, and they do the good old Bond style of: kiss her until she likes it. There are a lot of obnoxious side characters and they get far too much screen time. The story takes back seat for a long stretch of the movie and it chooses the oddest things to focus on.
There are bonus points of originality, but boy is it ever strange. I can see it being some people's favorite movie, but for me it is too unfocused, confusing and filled with annoying characters. There is a little magic, but it falls short of coming together.