bad/awesome flixxx review: Krull (1983)

"Now I know you're a lunatic. I wouldn't follow me own father to the black fortress."- Torquil

"Merrith, oh my sweet, she doesn't hold a candle to you. She's not even pretty."- Kegan

"Enter here, and die."- Widow of the Web

This was a favorite of mine when I was younger. I've wanted to review this one since I started doing these reviews, but I had to actually take the time to sit down with it. There were some things I couldn't remember, and I always got the bad guy in this one mixed up with the jewel wizard guy in Conan the Destroyer. Anyway, that's why I don't just review the movies, i make sure to rewatch them first. Without a fresh take you miss most of the good stuff. I'm looking at you Leonard Maltin. That motherfucker's book has thousands and thousands of movies. There is absolutely NO WAY that he's seen every single one of them. If he has then that's very very impressive. But I'm not buying it. Anyway, this is a superb sci fi fantasy adventure mixing old king stuff with laser troopers and alien bad guys who live in a disappearing fortress. Perfect. A young Liam Neeson is a background character along with a bunch of relatively unknowns in KRULL!!!!





After rewatching this flick there are tons of unanswered questions I have. I've researched it, and I can't find the answers anywhere. As a matter of fact, I didn't know what Krull was until I looked it up. I didn't hear the dude say it in the beginning. Its the fucking name of the planet!! Let's start with a little summary of the movie. The movie starts out with this intro:

"From the sky will come the Black Fortress. From the Fortress will come the Slayers to devour the planet of Krull. Then shall a girl of ancient name become queen...she shall choose a king...and together they shall rule the planet. And their son shall rule the galaxy."

They never say shit about the son. Who is the son? Were they going to make a sequel to this if it was Star Wars successful? Who knows? I guess they still could if anyone actually cared. But after finishing the movie, I don't know if anyone actually would. If the prophesy is correct, it would seem that either they have some more bad guys to deal with, or their son becomes the ruler of the galaxy for whatever reason. Maybe he's a dictator. Maybe he's a dickhead. No way to find out. Anyway, the story begins with this black spaceship looking thing floating down to a planet. It just so happens to be a castle, or the "black fortress". There are 2 kingdoms here, and the offspring of the kings are trying to pull the kingdoms together by getting married so they can battle the coming evil. How they know about the evil is beyond me, but they are correct, it is coming.



Troops are dispatched from the fortress called "Slayers". They are basically stormtrooper looking robot guys with these laserguns that shoot twice and then they turn them over and brandish them as swords that when clashing against other swords create this red lightning. While the prince and princess are getting married they storm the castle. Quick side note: the wedding is kind of awesome. He lights a candle and puts it in the water giving fire to water, and says the chick who can take fire from water is the one for me. AND SHE DOES! HA! That's the only way i'm ever getting married. Dip your hand into water and bring me out a handful of fire babe!! Ok, so they interrupt that and a battle ensues. The Slayers are winning, but when the occasional one dies, they scream like banshees, and then this bloody lobster jettisons from their chest cavity and drills into the ground to escape!! Its fucking brutal!! I didn't remember that shit at all! They take the chick and escape. The prince who is now the king, since both fathers are murdered is approached by the "old one" who comes to take him to help do whatever they are supposed to do. Thus begins their treacherous journey.



First Prince Colwyn has to go get this badass weapon off the top of a mountain. Its called the glave and looks like a giant spinning ninja star. He sticks his hand in FUCKING LAVA to get it and nothing happens to his hand. ???! Then they meet some men along the way and get them to join their cause. The first one is a magician named Ergo, and then they meet up with some bandits and a cyclops. They have to find this seer to tell them where to look for the fortress because it disappears every day and ends up somewhere else. The seer has a kid with him and then he tries to "see' where the fortress is, but the monster or creature or whatever of the fortress grabs his magic rock out of thin air and stops them. The seer sends them to some swamp, and then gets killed while no one is looking. A shape changer tries to kill the prince but the cyclops saves him. Then the old man is like, well there's one other place we can go. So he takes them across the hills to a forest and then climbs a mountain to talk to his old ex lady the widow in the web. Some other changling tries to kill the prince but she fell in love with him and the creature is pissed. The widow in the web gave him some minutes in a hourglass so that he could get to her and not be killed by the giant albino crystal spider. He convinces her to show him where the castle is so they can rescue the new queen.



Finally they figure out where to go but the old man has to die. But they have to figure out how to get a day's ride away in only a few hours so they go find these horses called "Fire Steeds" who can ride fast and even fly apparently. So they get there but the cyclops rescues them one last time before being squished. I won't give away the ending even though its not very good. I will say that somehow the fire from water trick ends up giving King Colwyn some magic powers to shoot fire from his hands. and before that he finally uses the glave, which is one of the coolest weapons in a movie ever. However there is still so many unanswered questions. I guess they can go unasked because it doesn't really matter. Its a pretty damn fine movie. Makes me want to go back and watch Willow for some reason. I've always dug the sword and sorcery flicks, even if they have a bit of swashbuckling in them. 2 thumbs up. Check it out on Netflix or for free on Crackle. Word up.

UPDATE!: not sure if everyone reads the comments, so this came from stephklok:

stephklok said...
courtesy of MELLOW BRAVO (www.mellowbravo.com)
the rules are as follows:

Anytime the castle moves-DRINK
Blades come out of the Glave (SHOT)
If fire where should not be-DRINK
if The Glave is even mentioned, DRINK respect the Glave
anytime someone/thing dies-DRINK
anytime someone cries-DRINK
anytime someone shape shifts-DRINK
liam neeson/cyclops talk-DRINK

you WILL be wasted if you play this game.