Willow details
Movie Details:
- Director: Ron Howard
- Produced By: Imagine Entertainment, Lucasfilm, MGM, United Artists
- Year: 1988
- Run Time: 118 minutes
- Country: USA
- Language: English
- MPAA Rating: PG
- Category: Feature
- Genre/Type: Fantasy
- Filmed In: Color
- Release: 1988 05 20 (USA)
- Key Cast: Val Kilmer, Joanne Whalley, Warwick Davis, Patricia Hayes, Jean Marsh, Billy Barty, Pat Roach, Gavan O'Herlihy, Full Credits
- Awards: Best Sound Effects (Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Scie 1988), Best Visual Effects (Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Scie 1988), Full Awards
Though Willow was one of director Ron Howard's few box-office disappointments, it definitely deserves a second look. At once an epic celebration and a gentle spoof of the sword-and-sorcery genre, the film concerns the efforts by little person Willow Ufgood (Warwick Davis) to protect a sacred infant from the machinations of a wicked queen (Jean Marsh). One source book has assessed the picture as a combination of The Ten Commandments and Snow White. This is true enough, except that neither one of those properties offered such offbeat casting choices as Billy Barty and Jean Marsh. Executive producer George Lucas has (through the conduit of screenwriter Bob Dolman) added elements of his own Star Wars saga to the stew. The results are generally satisfactory, though the film is sometimes weighed down by too much plot, and the action sequences may not be suitable for very young children. Incidentally, this is the film where co-star Val Kilmer met his future wife Joanne Whalley. by Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Keywords:
- apprentice
- bodyguard
- fairy
- queen [royalty]
- quest
- sorcerer
- troll
- Little-People
- good-vs-evil
- sword-and-sorcery
Themes:
- Underdogs
- Heroic Mission
- Journey of Self-Discovery
