Somehow Willow had passed me be since its release back in 1988 until just recently, when I saw it for a mere £5 in one of the shops at the hospital I work in. I’ve always been curious about it as I remember a lot of hype at the time of its release, and of course it was brought to us by George Lucas of Star Wars fame.

The story is a very traditional fantasy tale with a few biblical overtones thrown in for good measure. An evil queen rules (just where do they find all these evil queens?!?) but there is a prophecy about a child, who bears a certain mark, who will bring about her downfall. She has all babies checked for this mark, and the idea is that when it’s found, the child will be brought to her. (For reason or reasons unknown just killing the child won’t do the job, it must be used in a ritual to banish its soul to the nether regions, but we won’t criticise Lucas for indulging in the sort of hackneyed fantasy plot device seen more recently in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.) Almost with the speed of an Israelite maiden in ancient Egypt, however, the midwife rushes down to the river and puts the baby onto a bed of rushes…

The baby ends up drifting downstream to the family of a Nelwyn (dwarf) named Willow, who after initially being reluctant takes in the baby and looks after her. When the Evil Queen dispatches wolf-like creatures to the dwarves’ village to take the infant, it is decided that Willow must take the baby to the “Tall People” for them to look after. On his way he encounters Madmartigan, who claims to be the world’s greatest swordsman but who is behind bars at the time. Then, of course, the fun really begins…

With a terrific cast including Val Kilmer in excellent form as Madmartigan, and Warwick Davis starring as the eponymous Willow there’s real quality to the performances, and some superb special effects provided by Lucas’ own Industrial Light & Magic make this movie is a visual feast. The real life and soul of this movie, however, is the script. It borrows from every famous fantasy story ever written but manages to have its own unique charm (if perhaps not originality). The story moves along at a brisk pace and there is plenty of humour throughout, which was a great decision as it makes any unoriginality in the story seem unimportant. In particular the two brownies that help (and hinder) on their quest are hilarious. The music by James Horner is atmospheric and enjoyable, along with being very lively at times. If you look very carefully, you might see Kenny Baker (who played R2D2 in the Star Wars Nelwyn…

It was nice to see Warwick Davis have a starring role for once. He is a veteran actor but you probably wouldn’t recognise him. He is normally behind a suit - he has played the mouse Reepicheep in the BBC version of Prince Caspian and Voyage of the Dawn Treader, Glimfeather the owl in The Silver Chair, an Ewok in Return of the Jedi, Flitwick in the Harry Potter films, Grildrig in Gulliver’s Travels, and more recently was Marvin in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. This time however he gets to play himself without too much makeup and without being engulfed in a suit. He as always puts in a superb performance, and somehow makes a much more “real” little hero than the hobbits from Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings series.

So there you have it. It’s got the all-important 3 F’s… Fast, Fun, & Funny. For kids there’s plenty of action without any gore, a heart-warming tale, lots of sight-gags, a good moral to the story, and happy ending. What more could you possibly want? For adults though it’s very good fun, with Kilmer’s performance being very amusing. Directed by Ron Howard (who later directed the marvellous A Beautiful Mind) with assistance from George Lucas, this is a wonderful example of entertainment that the whole family can enjoy.

Rating: PG
Runtime: 126 minutes

Extras

DVD extras include:

Audio commentary by Warwick Davis
Theatrical Trailer
2 Theatrical Teaser Tralers
8 TV Spots

Stills Gallery – now this is a lot better than most galleries I’ve seen on DVD extras since it features many production stills, so you see some behind the scenes images.

There are also two featurettes:

“Willow: Making of an Adventure”
“Morf to Morphing: The Dawn of Digital Filmmaking”

These are the best extras on the DVD by a long way. There are plenty of interviews with the cast and crew, all presented in the same madcap, carefree style that the movie itself has. Two really nice points from this featurette: firstly (unfortunately this has been made much less sweet by their divorce in 1996) the bit where Val Kilmer admits to continually fluffing his lines following the scene where he kisses evil princess Sorsha, played by Joanne Whalley, who married Val a year after they met on the set of Willow. The second was that most of the inhabitants of the dwarf village were not actors (since they needed a lot more than they’d have been able to get), and when on set there Ron Howard said that he understood for the first time how they must feel from day to day because there, as he said: “I was the outsider, the one who was a different size to everyone else.”) Well I thought they were nice anyway! :-D

The feature on morphing is also very interesting. At the time it was a new technique, and the late 80s saw the beginning of the end of chemical photography and the beginning of the digital photography age. How the techniques were envisaged and created is quite fascinating, and the feature does go on to demonstrate how the technology continued to develop after Willow, most noticeably in The Abyss and Terminator 2. So, very unusually for me, I was actually impressed with the extras as well as the actual movie.


For £5 it’s a truly excellent buy, but even if you end up paying quite a bit more for it you won’t have wasted your money by any means. Terrific stuff, nice one George!!


Quotes

Madmartigan: What happened back there?
Willow: You started spouting poetry. "I love you Sorsha! I worship you Sorsha!" You almost got us killed!
Madmartigan: "I love you Sorsha?" I don't love her, she kicked me in the face! I hate her... Don't I?

Franjean: You are drunk, and when you are drunk you forget that I am in charge!

Llug: Wanna breed?
Madmartigan: [disguised as Hilda] Tempting... but No.

Rool: We'll never catch up with those horses!
Franjean: Then we will have to track them.
Rool: That would take forever. Besides, even if we found them, they'd capture us, stick us in cages, torture us and then finally devour us!
Franjean: Are you suggesting we go home?
Rool: Nah, this is more fun.
Franjean: All right, fine then. Come on!

(Franjean and Rool are the Brownies, in case you hadn’t worked it out! :-D)





See also my Top Ten Children's Movies



Recommended:
Yes

Viewing Format: DVD
Video Occasion: Good for Groups