"Tom Cruise stars in this visually stunning fantasy adventure in which pure good and evil battle to the death amidst spectacular surroundings. Set in a timeless mythical forest inhabited by fairies, goblins, unicorns and mortals, this fantastic story has Tom Cruise, a mystical forest dweller, chosen by fate to undertake a heroic quest. He must save a beautiful princess, Mia Sara, and defeat the demonic Lord of Darkness, Tim Curry, or the world will be plunged into a never-ending ice age. Co-starring Billy Barty and Alice Playten and directed by Ridley Scott, famed for his remarkable settings and unparalleled imagery, the incredibly realized fable is the stuff movie legends are made of."
-Legend DVD jacket synopsis

The American theatrical release of Legend is more impressionistic than the Director's Cut of the film that accompanies it on DVD--because it's the hollowed-out carcass of a complete cinematic experience. It's this gorgeous, dainty thing that hints at something beyond the horizon, lacking not colour but texture, which is in abundance in Scott's latest rendition of the picture. As a child, I watched Legend over and over again, never liking it but always dazzled by it and hoping, perhaps, that repeat viewings would help me to see what isn't there; there is fire and ice yet no warmth and no chill in the U.S. Legend. (I imagine the European cut is little different at five minutes more.) Ridley Scott's exclusive-to-DVD re-edit of Legend contains approximately twenty-minutes of heretofore-unseen footage and Jerry Goldsmith's regal original score, and with no pun intended, it's a fantastic film.

2.32:1 DVD capture: Legend (2002 cut)

As with the "Director's Cut" of Blade Runner (recently acknowledged as sloughed-off by Scott, who is preparing a definitive version of the film), (henceforth) 'Legend 2002' is not just longer--deletions have been made, shots reshuffled, and exposition removed in an effort to sophisticate the piece on top of fleshing it out. Tim Curry's Darkness, for example, delivers his opening soliloquy off-screen, that great English basso sounding profoundly lonely as it bounces off the empty walls of his misty castle, which has but one window, mushroom in shape, that looks out into the stars. Darkness makes his first corporeal appearance at the 75-minute mark in Legend 2002, while his face is among the North American Legend's earliest sights. A Freddy Krueger figure, in other words, has transmogrified into a Jaws one, adding a rich layer of suspense to a film that lacked the thrill of, to borrow from another famous Curry grotesque, "anticipation."

Having read Paul M. Sammon's skimpy, if worthwhile, Ridley Scott: Close Up, I was familiar with Scott and screenwriter William Hjortsberg's intention for Lili, the Princess character (a "Lady" in the American version), to be manipulative. "Basically, she was a brat," Scott told Sammon. But she was toned down in the editing room until she became, in Scott's words, "innocence personified." The restoration of Lili's personality places Legend 2002 in an emotional context removed from that of its forebear: we see her as more susceptible to the forces of Darkness, while Jack's (Tom Cruise) desire to be with Lili now has a pathetic--as opposed to fatalistic--quality. Moreover, the reinstatement of Lili scolding Jack in return for lecturing her against interacting with the unicorns strengthens Legend's theme of redemption.

The film is not suddenly a masterpiece, of course, except in comparison. The build-up to the ice age caused by a unicorn's castration, so to speak, suffers from a rather awkward transition in which Lili frolics with the restless unicorns to Lili and Jack talking marriage in a tree--one wishes that these three turning points were better consolidated. Legend's middle still lacks punctuation in Legend 2002, although the supporting cast and even Cruise--less a cipher than single-minded here--are indelible in a way they weren't before. And the core idea remains simplistic; Legend seems to exist to show up previous attempts in the sword-and-sorcery genre, Hjortsberg's thin (however evocative) screenplay barely supporting the production's juggernaut credentials, i.e. Cruise, cinematographer Alex Thomson, the ingenious make-up designer Rob Bottin, and so on.

Let's end this on a positive note. Legend 2002's closer cleverly addresses the fate of Darkness and his "balance" prophecy instead of going for shorthand: the American film murders its happily-ever-after denouement with a cheesy, trés '80s dissolve to Darkness chortling. The revamp disposes of this gimmick and then some, leaving any kind of consummation for Jack and Lili to another day. With an impetuous Lili fleeing Jack, promising to visit tomorrow, the beautiful symmetry of the revised conclusion renders implicit as opposed to explicit the survival of Darkness, thus cementing Legend's boldly subtle new spirit.

2.32:1 DVD capture: Mia Sara in Legend (2002 cut)

Universal's "Ultimate Edition" DVD of Legend is a 2-disc set that includes the 114-minute Legend 2002 on the first platter and the 89-minute American Legend along with supplementary material on the second. Legend 2002 distinguishes itself on a technical level with the cleaner, crisper, richer 2.35:1 anamorphic widescreen transfer of the two. The otherworldly quality to the mind-boggling visuals aside, it looks like a recent film--sounds it, too, in Dolby Digital and DTS 5.1 options that immerse you in bucolic exteriors and hellish interiors of constant ambience. Bass, however, is on the weak side, at times punchier on Disc 2's Dolby Surround track, though the bleariness of the domestic Legend's image speaks to a concentration of efforts on Legend 2002.

Ridley Scott contributes an eager full-length commentary to his Director's Cut. Indexed by chapter headings separate from those found in the scene selection sub-menus, Scott incautiously remembers that David Bennent's vocals were re-dubbed by the New York-born Alice Playten because a studio stooge said he "sounds like a goddamn Nazi;" that a 10-year-old doubled for a peak-diving Cruise; that the film's convincing fairy F/X were accomplished with a fishing line and a light bulb; and so on. The pooped Ridley of the Hannibal DVD has returned to the form of his first and best yak-track on Alien. Moving on, we have J.M. Kenny's sensational "Creating a Myth... The Memories of Legend" (51 mins.), wherein the major players, save conspicuous absentees Cruise (who's not so much as mentioned) and Goldsmith, recount the inferno-plagued shoot. The celestial Mia Sara, fifteen during filming, admits that she was love-struck by Scott's directorial confidence and felt devastated when she discovered that he had butchered Legend. (Contrary to popular opinion, Scott says that a ruinous test-screening and not Sid Sheinberg--the man responsible for the "Love Conquers All" retooling of Brazil--persuaded him to get the scissors out.)

"Lost Scenes" is comprised of an alternate opening that was missing until March of last year (it drags) and a reconstruction of the gone-forever "Faerie Dance" through production art. Storyboards for three sequences and three galleries of stills (one of which is devoted to continuity Polaroids!) are prefaced by thorough explanations of what you're about to browse. Legend's international and U.S. trailers, four Legend TV spots (with play-all function), cast and filmmaker biographies (Hjortsberg, entertaining in said doc, is unfortunately denied one), production notes, a useless page of "Recommendations" and a page for the "DVD Newsletter," Bryan Ferry's video for the nostalgia-inspiring "Is Your Love Strong Enough" (a song nowhere to be found in Legend 2002), Tangerine Dream's score on an isolated audio stream backing the U.S. Legend (alas, Goldsmith's superior compositions didn't receive the same treatment on Disc 1), a DVD-ROM script-to-screen interface (with a link to Hjortsberg's poetic initial draft), and a handsome foldout booklet round out this choice package.-Bill Chambers

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DVD VITALS:
Running Time
114/89 minutes
MPAA
PG
Aspect Ratio(s)
2.32:1 ONLY, 16x9-enhanced
Languages
English DD 5.1,
English DTS 5.1,
English Dolby Surround
CC
No
Subtitles
English, French, Spanish
2 DVD-9s
Region One
Universal

the critic

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Published: May 15, 2002