Legend would probably get, on the 10/10 vote scoring, a full 9/10 for the sheer "plastic" quality of the picture. Plastic, I mean, in the purely technical and, damn if I say it, magic of the special effects and design. Even when it should be too sickeningly sweet and innocent, or perhaps on the flip-side too dark and hellish, director Ridley Scott and his production team of designers and art decorators and effects men and costume and creature designers (main one 'Thing' creator Rob Bottin on one of his very best jobs) make this delightful to look at. Scott did accomplish one thing, if nothing else, which was to recreate with sets and actors and make-up the experience of reading fairy tales or watching a Disney movie. It is one of the director's best-looking pictures, and that is saying something for the former production designer's films like Alien and Blade Runner. On that front, it's not only exemplary of what can be done with both imagination and (rightfully laid) homage but what can look almost ahead of its time.
This being said, the story and especially the dialog would get a 5/10. Maybe I just can't speak for myself in finding the characters not very engrossing aside from the sheer conventionality placed in the peril between light and dark, Jack (Tom Cruise) vs. Darkness (an awesome devil played by Tim Curry), gnomes and trolls vs. gargoyles and big galoots. The writing is so stuck in simple terms (which for some may work) that it's hard to look past the fact that it is, straight up and down, a pure feat of style over substance. And it's HIGH style, the likes of which give a good name for style and technical prowess, against so-so substance that could be found in any picture book. This goes without saying that Jerry Goldsmith's score (included, thankfully, on the director's cut) fits in very well even when such characters are speaking without much interest, and rises some scenes to emotional heights. But the script, with some bits of exception, lacks the spark of soul needed for great fantasy, and what a director like Jim Henson- working at the same time on Dark Crystal and Labyrinth- understood intuitively.
By the end, it's a wonderful marvel that, perhaps, wasn't entirely meant for me as a section of the audience. In my 20's now this was the first time I had seen any version of the film, and yet even with my reservations I could see the film playing very well for young children ready for the bright, sweet innocent side and cold, grim, brimstone-laden dark side (look ye elsewhere for grays), and if one is totally obsessed with fairy-tale fantasy it might strike even as greater. It's a pleasant experience that's magnificent to see (it's definitely *made* for a giant theatrical screen), however lacking in some ways that keep it from true brilliance.
This being said, the story and especially the dialog would get a 5/10. Maybe I just can't speak for myself in finding the characters not very engrossing aside from the sheer conventionality placed in the peril between light and dark, Jack (Tom Cruise) vs. Darkness (an awesome devil played by Tim Curry), gnomes and trolls vs. gargoyles and big galoots. The writing is so stuck in simple terms (which for some may work) that it's hard to look past the fact that it is, straight up and down, a pure feat of style over substance. And it's HIGH style, the likes of which give a good name for style and technical prowess, against so-so substance that could be found in any picture book. This goes without saying that Jerry Goldsmith's score (included, thankfully, on the director's cut) fits in very well even when such characters are speaking without much interest, and rises some scenes to emotional heights. But the script, with some bits of exception, lacks the spark of soul needed for great fantasy, and what a director like Jim Henson- working at the same time on Dark Crystal and Labyrinth- understood intuitively.
By the end, it's a wonderful marvel that, perhaps, wasn't entirely meant for me as a section of the audience. In my 20's now this was the first time I had seen any version of the film, and yet even with my reservations I could see the film playing very well for young children ready for the bright, sweet innocent side and cold, grim, brimstone-laden dark side (look ye elsewhere for grays), and if one is totally obsessed with fairy-tale fantasy it might strike even as greater. It's a pleasant experience that's magnificent to see (it's definitely *made* for a giant theatrical screen), however lacking in some ways that keep it from true brilliance.