Posted on 08/01/2007 7:38:44 AM PDT by qam1
In honour of the release of "300" on DVD, we take a look back our favourite "oh-so-bad," from-the-'80s mythology-ish movies that we hate to love.
Long before Peter Jackson and his "Lord of the Rings" trilogy legitimized the genre, these movies dwelt somewhere between the A minus and B-movie grades and have since earned themselves cult status among a certain Gen-X cohort.
Let's be clear, we're not talking the overwrought sword and sandal variety such as "Gladiator" or "Troy," or those with long talkative sequences and fits and spurts of action, but those of the only decade in history in which they could have been produced - the over-the-top excessive 1980s.
While they do contain moments of mild winking-at-the audience-humour, generally the creators (big names like Wolfgang Peterson, Ron Howard and Terry Gilliam) of these movies took themselves so seriously, the results were a misplaced earnestness that we just can't help but laugh at. And, needless to say, time has not served them well.
Nestled in the years between the "Star Wars" effects advancements and the landmark Jurassic Park CGI achievements, their hokey heroes were surrounded by a medley of stop-motion animation, Henson-style puppetry and awkward costuming.
What follows is the best of the worst, those that made no attempt at tongue in cheek, or irony - just plain old fantasy flicks that were all filmic faux pas to the very last frame. Semi-mythological, semi-serious, fully pulped.......
My first thought was Jason and the Argonauts, which is the king of ‘em all IMHO, walking skeletons and all, if we’re talking about mythological movies!
In terms of mythological fantasy, Clash of the Titans had some OK sets but was weak, Dragonslayer has great dragon scenes but is overrated for trying to be a revisionist fantasy, Time Bandits is a very entertaining (and dark) Terry Gilliam movie, Conan the Barbarian is one of those mixtures of great stuff and cheese that is just SO entertaining, Beastmaster is fine if you're a homosexual who digs half-naked guys who look like aliens, Sword and the Sorcerer was just gawdawful and boring, Krull is one of those movies that has so many bits stolen from other movies that you can practically see the stitiching holding this mess together, The Neverending Story deserves to be considered a children's classic, Legend was a mistake from the start (the original script was more epic and darker) made worse by jettisoning Jerry Goldsmith's great musical score and hacking scenes out and Willow is colorful garbage.
Conan, Krull, the European cut of Legend,Beastmaster and Willow all have terrific scores, though.
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