Official Synopsis
When young Willow Ufgood (Warwick Davis; Harry Potter franchise) finds an abandoned baby girl, he learns she is destined to end the reign of the wicked Queen Bavmorda (Jean Marsh; “Upstairs, Downstairs”). In order to protect the child, Willow must team up with a rogue swordsman (Val Kilmer; Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang) and overcome the forces of darkness in the ultimate battle of good versus evil!
Willow is one of those films where you love it for sentimental reasons, but fully understand it isn’t nearly as perfect as it could have been. The transitions between action scenes are dull, while the overall story arc is riddled with questions that never truly get answered. For example, do we even know how Elora Dannon is going to banish Queen Bavmorda? The entire movie wraps itself around this idea that this child would somehow do away with the Queen, and it really never comes to fruition (maybe it was in the sequel we never saw). All of these things really make for a messy film.
But, fans are still forgiving. Here is why.
Willow has really fun moments in the film. Sure the transition between them is shaky at best, but when the moments arrive they truly arrive. For example, the snow scene where Madmartigan rescues Willow, the Brownies and Elora Dannon, is very fun (especially the moments with Sorsha). It’s intense with quick cuts that really drive the adrenaline to the viewers. Who didn’t want to sled down a huge mountain like that?
Another example is the battle in the troll ridden run down castle, where Madmartigan and Willow battle soldiers and a two-headed monster (Eborsisk). The moment when Madmartigan is pinned down by soldiers and the Eborsisk appears behind him, driving the soldiers away, is just freaking brilliant. Madmartigan runs to the side of the enemies to get away and then looks around noticing he’s in the arms of the enemy. Comedic gold in the middle of action chaos.
There are all sorts of fun moments that do make up for some serious story issues, and these are what make Willow as fantastic as most people remember.
In addition to the ‘moments’, the acting really drove this piece. All the actors seem to buy into their respective roles. Warwick Davis is brilliant as our protagonist. While his acting is a little raw (it was his first big film), he still makes a very solid hero. In addition to him, we also get the very funny, talented and believable anti-hero in Madmartigan, played by Val Kilmer. Kilmer seemed to really buy into his role as the tainted knight, and he was a joy to watch onscreen. The other three home runs in this film are the very saucy Joanne Whalley as Sorsha, and two of the funniest folks on screen in Franjean (played by Rick Overton) and Rool (Kevin Pollak — he certainly has come a long way). The acting brought everything up a notch.
Despite the flaws, the film is still fun to watch after 25 years. I honestly hadn’t seen it on any format outside of the theater prior to this Blu-ray release. It was nice to see that it still brought back a feeling of adventure and somewhat believability thanks in part to Ron Howard’s fantastic directing style. In other words, this movie has plenty of longevity in it, which is great considering how many better films there are out there (The Hobbit, anyone?). If you need more of an example of how well this has lasted over the years, my kids were glued to the television set with this film. They’ve seen a ton of films (shocking, eh?), so it was impressive that this 25 year old film still capture their attention. It speaks volumes.
As for the Blu-ray portion of the film, Fox did a great job with the clean up. The transfer to HD, while still containing some graininess, looks really good on a 1080p screen. Some of the darker moments of the film, especially when there is fog involved, brings out some of that grain, but for the most part it’s pretty solid. Fox isn’t exactly known for being consistent with HD transfers, but I’m glad they treated this one right. It’s worth the extra dough on Blu-ray.
The audio for the release comes to you in DTS-HD 5.1 and the aspect ratio is 2.39:1.
Finally, as for the features, here’s what you’re looking at:
– Willow: Deleted Scenes with Ron Howard
– Willow: An Unlikely Hero Personal Video Diary of Warwick Davis
– The Making of an Adventure with an all new introduction from Ron Howard
– From Morf to Morphing with an all new introduction from Dennis Muren
– Matte Paintings
The first two features are new to the Willow digital release, meaning you haven’t seen them on DVD before. For once in a very long time, I thoroughly enjoyed the deleted scenes. The fish boy scene should have made the cut, as it was terrifying. Sure it isn’t CGI, but it looks creepy as hell. Anyway, what I liked about the deleted scenes is that they were introduced by Ron Howard and given plenty of explanation (and passion) of why they didn’t make the final cut. They’re worth your time, as they’re not just another ‘deleted scene’ section. I wish more Blu-ray releases had something like this with their deleted scenes.
The video diary with Warwick Davis was cool, as you get a nice constant cutaway with Davis between the footage he shot and his explanation. It’s interesting stuff and made more for fans and memories of the film. It’s very solid and I’m sure Davis didn’t expect it to make it on a digital release in 1988. Solid stuff.
The ‘making of’ and ‘morf to morphing’ were earlier features from a previous release. They were interesting (though, the ‘making of’ really aged a bit), but not as good as the first two features on the list above. The matte paintings were neat, but sadly it’s an old technique that is slowly being replaced by computers (BLECH).
Overall, these are respective features for a 25 anniversary release. Fox treated this right.
