Honoring The Past

When I was a boy, I liked the movies as much as anyone, though I didn't get to see as many as I would have liked. I got to see some, not that a lot of those stick out in my mind from the very early stages in my life. One that I do remember is the fantasy film "Willow". What I remember better than seeing it was just it being in the theaters. I remember promotions run through the cereals I ate. I remember the sticker books concerning it (and a sticker book, I should say, is a book you'd buy which I believe roughly laid out the story of the movie, and you filled it out with stickers that you bought in random packs. You had to keep buying the packs until you had all the right ones).

I do also remember the movie a touch from then, but watching it the other night certainly helped refresh my memory, and I have to say that Willow is nothing more so than a fun combination of the story of Moses and "The Fellowship Of The Ring". A prophecy is told that a baby will grow up and overthrow a queen. The queen orders the pregnant women jailed and the baby destroyed. The prophesied baby is secreted onto a raft sent down the river, where it's found by Willow, a very hobbit-like creature called an "Elwyn". He must restore the baby into the possession of its own people.

He naturally runs into obstacles, most of which were very entertaining. This film offered no end of entertaining characters, including rogues, warriors, little sprites and so on. Val Kilmer is in there with an early role. Industrial Lights and Magic delivers some great effects. Warwick Davis, who mostly has been hidden in one full body costume or another, here has the lead and acquits himself well in the title role. Altogether, the movie comes out very well, which is no given with George Lucas-written, Ron Howard-directed movies.

If I were to offer any complaints, one would have to be how Willow gets sidelined at times. Characters like Val's seize prominence, leading you to wonder where the titular character is at. Indeed, Davis receives rather less than top billing in the credits, which is partly fair considering his relative obscurity, but it could also be attributed to his occasional obscurity within the film. A climactic battle with the evil queen sees Willow on the sidelines for some time as his mentor shoulder the burden. That aside, the movie does live up to my faint childhood memory.