Sleeper Cell: Krull (1983)

Ok. Maybe it’s not fair to call Krull a sleeper. It did have an stand-up arcade game, an Atari 7800 video game and a Parker Brothers board game based on it. But I’m basing this judgment mostly on box office receipts, and since it had a budget of around 27 million and only took in around 16, I say it’s fair game. The plot, conveniently, is incredibly video game friendly. It’s simple: save the princess.
It opens with a wedding. Prince Colwyn (Ken Marshall, Star Trek Deep Space Nine and Operation Delta Force 2: Mayday) is marrying the princess of a neighboring kingdom: Princess Lyssa (Lysette Anthony, Dracula: Dead and Loving It, Dr. Jekyll and Ms. Hyde), but before the celebration begins, she’s kidnapped by the armored, squealing minions of the evil dark monster bad-guy. There’s a pretty cool battle scene, complete with swords and laser-staffs. Colwyn and his band of merry men survive and go on their quest to save the fair maiden, acquiring new friends, killing assorted beasties and collecting new and interesting weapons along the way – all the normal fare that you’d expect from an adventure video game.

Laser Guns for the U.S.A.! U.S.A.! U.S.A.!

LASER-equipped Boeing 747

Just a few days ago, on February 11, 2010, the United States military successfully tested an aircraft-mounted “laser-weapon.” The test aircraft was a modified Boeing 747, its nose equipped with infrared sensors along with a laser. The laser, designed by Northrop Grumman (defense contractor responsible for reconnaissance drones for the U.S. Navy), is aimed at an in-flight ballistic missile, destroying it before the missile has a chance to reach its target. Check out the video at YouTube.  This laser, with the potential to deter multiple targets with its speed-of-light attack, is capable of destroying ballistic missile targets travelling over 4,000 miles per hour and is leading the way for American military weaponry in the early 21st century. Hooray!

So Krull (directed by Peter Yates) is all pretty standard fantasy stuff that you’ve seen in Ewok Adventure: The Battle for Endor, Dragonslayer, and Clash of the Titans. But dammit, don’t we love those movies? And I love this one too. I’m willing to concede the action’s a little cheesy, a little corny. But it was the eighties man. The eighties! Corn and cheese weren’t corny or cheesy; that’s just how life was. We tied bandanas around our knees, we wore tennis shoes with two tongues and we gave actual awards to a television show about a puppet alien. So when the silent, old good guy is killed by an evil monster who takes his form and just to make sure the audience followed that little bit of stealthery, opens his eyes to let us all see his Wes Borland shark-eye contacts, it’s okay. Don’t sweat the little stuff. Besides, it’s all worth it to see the awesome stop-motion giant spider and Liam Neeson in his first ever film role (I think he might actually have a line or two).

Mexican Corn Salad

Recipe for My Wife’s Cheese-Corn (Mexican Corn Salad)
4 cans (14 3/4 ounces each) or equivalent fresh corn
16 ounces Cotija Cheese (Mexican crumbling cheese)
1/2 Large Red Onion – finely chopped
1/2 cup fresh Cilantro – chopped
1/2 cup Lime Mayonnaise
salt and pepper to taste

Drain the corn and pour into a large serving dish. Finely chop the red onion and cilantro and pour on top of the corn. Mix the lime mayonnaise and Cotija cheese with the corn, onions and cilantro. Mix well for even distribution of all ingredients. Add salt and pepper as desired. Serve chilled or at room temperature.

I saw Krull for the first time when I was pretty little. Thankfully, there’s not a whole lot of nuance to the script. It was one of my sister’s favorites, as she was a little girl, and like all little girls, was totally in love with all things horse. The indelible mark of the movie is the great Fire Mare scene. The evil, dark monster bad-guy’s castle is so incredibly, impossibly, unbelievably far away that the heroes will never ever be able to get there in time (you see, the castle magically relocates every sunrise to a different part of the universe!). If only there were a large group of magical flying horses nearby…

Of course, a herd of Pegasusessusses (Pegasi?) would just look silly. Now, a herd of Shire Horses who run so fast their feet catch fire; that’s cinematic gold. Mix it with some state-of-the-art matte camera-work and wide, wide, incredibly wide angle views, and you’ve got yourself an adventure scene my friend!

Ian McKellan as the evil Magneto

5: Leaps tall trees in a
single bound with a smile my
neighbor: Totoro

4: Creating traffic
cyclones to save his girl and
knows Kung Fu: Neo

3: The American
Moses; orbit reversing
badass: Superman

2: Nasty teeth, Klaatu,
Barada, Neck-tie: The Fake
Necronomicon

1: Hates the handicapped,
but wears an awesome hat: the
evil Magneto!

And it was the 80s, and people loved fantasy (like they still do, of course). But Krull goes unnoticed (I consider a movie overlooked if it still isn’t on Blu-ray). Really, it’s its own fault, considering it picked a year to debut with a Star Wars in it, not to mention the opening of A Christmas Story starring Brian Billingsly. What’re you gonna do?

Top 10 Grossing Films of 1983:
01 – $475,106,177 – Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi
02 – $108,423,489 – Terms of Endearment
03 – $92,921,203 – Flashdance
04 – $90,404,800 – Trading Places
05 – $79,567,667 – WarGames
06 – $67,893,619 – Octopussy
07 – $67,642,693 – Sudden Impact
08 – $64,892,670 – Staying Alive
09 – $64,783,827 – Mr. Mom
10 – $63,541,777 – Risky Business

The film itself, while being a straight forward adventure story, has a fair amount of depth for each of its characters. The old, wise man has an old romance yet to be resolved. There’s the mysterious and spooky Cyclops who has a great talent for being there right in the nick of time. And then there’s the very Disney duo of the young boy and the shape-shifting goofball sorcerer. And it’s really the goofball I want to talk about.

For simplicity’s sake, there are, at the most basic, 3 brands of fantasy. There’s the kind that takes itself way too seriously and deals with readers/viewers holding birthday parties in honor of certain Bagginses. There’s also the kind that doesn’t take itself seriously in the least, and shows us little clay-mation renditions of the bicycle-over-the-moon scene or maybe a spoof of a CG dragon on a date with a stop-motion home-made Terminator maquette. The third is the kind of fantasy that oh-so-desperately wants be taken seriously as an art-form, but recognizes that outside of The Lord of the Rings, people see fantasy as a cute vehicle for inventive adult film knockoffs (see: Ghost Lusters, Edward Penishands and Flesh Gordon). So these unfortunate filmmakers slap in an idiot character to let people know it’s not too serious and you can laugh at us ‘cause we really know how dumb it is to have Dennis Quaid talking to a dragon planning itsh revenge againsht the evil king.

My all-time favorite fantasy movies are probably Ridley Scott’s Legend (even with, or possibly even because of, the Tangerine Dream score) and Richard Donner’s Ladyhawke. Both are genius movies, and both are haunted by the Goofball. Tom Cruise’s incredibly serious, glittery loincloth shares the screen with maybe the best movie villain of all time – Tim Curry’s Darkness – and both are overshadowed by the ridiculous Inspector Gadget-like bumbling of the little dwarf men slipping and sliding and squeaky-voicing their way through a kitchen fight scene, because it’s never enough for fantasy to have fine, upstanding utility characters – not without a ridiculous beard and an over-the-top Tracy Ullman impersonation. And while Matthew Broderick’s slapstick Phillipe Gaston was the supposed foil for Ladyhawke’s awesome anti-hero Captain Navarre (Rutger Hauer), do we really need him stabbing guards in the foot through sewer grates? (Ladyhawke: another France-set film with characters named “Phillipe” and “Etienne” and “Isabeau” speaking their French with perfect British accents)

Guillermo del Toro

Only recently are we seeing fantasy, as a genre, man-up and give us a drama we can get behind. The entire fantasy film world has hitched its shy, little wagon to the belt loops of Guillermo del Toro. The Hellboy movies were both a huge success, but still, emotional as they were, were comedies at the root. And you could argue for El Labarinto del Fauno (Pan’s Labyrinth),¬†but that particular fantasy is explained away as a little girl‚Äôs imagination (see also Alice in Wonderland, The Fall, The Wizard of Oz, etc‚Ķ). So back comes del Toro with a true fantasy/drama/epic in the form of ‚Ķ oh wait. The Lord of the Rings. …Well, we‚Äôll get there someday.

The Fire Mares streak across the open plains

Sleeper Cell is a weekly column that will reflect movies that you perhaps missed or have always been meaning to watch but are too much of an asshole to place into your Netflix queue. ¬†This could be a movie from 50 years ago or a movie from last year. ¬†Bottom line, these are choice flicks and you missed out so Zack and our other writers are going to tell you what’s up.

Recent posts by Zack

• Zack says, "Go see The Avengers." - May 4th, 2012
• Zack's Take on: The Mite Peckish Games - April 12th, 2012
• Sleeper Cell is Late to the Party for: The Woman in Black - March 25th, 2012
• Review: Another Earth (2011) - August 14th, 2011
• Sleeper Cell: Haute Tension (2003) - June 23rd, 2011

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