Voyage of the Unicorn
|
List Price: Our Price: $3.36 You Save: $3.63 (52%) Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Category: DVD See more DVD releases |
|---|
Buy this DVD movie at online store in your country
Canada
Canada
Movie Reviews of Voyage of the Unicorn
Movie Review: Excellent Fantasy Story
Summary: 4 Stars
Great movie - my grandchildren loved the wide range of characters and the ultimate triumph of good over evil. The story is complex enough for grownups to stay mentally involved. Very imaginative - long but can be viewed in two sittings.Movie Review: Terrific movie
Summary: 4 Stars
Great movie. Terrific for the whole family. Helps to exercise the imagination. Should rank right up with the Wizard of Oz, Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter.Movie Review: A Fun Charade of a Fantasy Film
Summary: 3 Stars
I'm surprised that there are so many 5-star reviews since this movie, while charming, doesn't come anywhere near the 5-star fantasy classics I've seen in the past. A lonely widower (Beau Bridges) and his two young daughters, Miranda and Cassandra, find themselves transported on a magical voyage aboard the "Unicorn". It is during this voyage that they meet many legendary creatures, including Oberon, Titania, and Medusa. The journey proves both a harrowing adventure and enlightening experience as they find both their happiness and the memory of their loved one restored.
Now that I've gotten the main plot out of the way, I'll highlight the parts of the film that succeeded and failed to impress me as a fantasy flick.
The Good:
1) Beau Bridges and the two girls make a winningly charming trio. Bridges is a lovable father while Miranda is a sympathetically shy heroine and spunky Cassandra rather reminds me of an American Hermione Granger.
2) The musical score is for the most part pretty; mystical, though decidedly modern.
3) While the special effects left much to be desired, there are a few good standouts: the unicorn, the trolls, the sea-serpent, and the little fairies.
The Bad:
1) While there were some good special effects, some of the costuming was simply awful. For example, while the little fairies were gorgeous and awesome, the big ones were ridiculous. This film's version of Titania, for example, is simply the worst I've ever seen. Sure, not all fairies are supposed to be beautiful, but Titania certainly is! Instead, she looks like a human-preying water fairy, and this is certainly NOT how she's supposed to be portrayed. There was also a creature the film had the nerve to call a dryad. Um, no. If an elf and a mime had a child, this creature would be their offspring, but a dryad it is not. The two worst costumed characters were Medusa and the sphinx. I know Medusa's supposed to be beautiful, but who the heck decided to make her an overly exotic Indian goddess?? With her heavily made-up eyes and gigantic pursed lips, she irritated me so much I could hardly stand looking at her! The sphinx, for me, was the most bitter disappointment. Guess what, people? Putting a woman with springy hair and lionine eye-makeup into fuzzy pants does NOT make a sphinx! Put Medusa and the sphinx together, and you've got what looks like two very bad imitations of pop-stars; I half expected the two to break into "Survivor". I'm not sure what kind of joke the Emmy committee was playing by nominating this movie for costuming, but it wasn't a funny one.
2) The movie's tone often alternates between partly serious and totally silly, and I have a very low tolerance for excess silliness. It was this tone that often made it hard for me to take the movie seriously and grated on my nerves. I have mixed feelings about the famed scene in which Miranda dances for the sea-serpent; her dance is totally gorgeous and hypnotic, but the voice singing in the background starts warbling and I had to mute it. (Really singers, STOP doing this. It sounds pathetic, I assure you)
I also found it unnecessary for the film to imply that Titania hypnoticed Miranda in order for her to dance, especially after she told her she didn't need any magical help! This scene is so beautiful; why ruin it by turning Miranda into a puppet? This took away from the scene and only made me dislike Titania more. Besides, the camera focused so long on the sight of Miranda's eyelashes fluttering on the whites of her eyes that I wanted to smack her in order to make her eyes roll back into place. (By the way, there is no mermaid in this film; only the puppet caricature of one, so don't be disappointed like I was).
All in all, this is a 3-star movie. There are some bad special effects and too much silliness, but the good special effects and overall charm save it from being a bad film.
Movie Review: Pretty Good
Summary: 3 Stars
It was a good action movie great colors and a great fantasy movie. Good for Kids and Adults.Movie Review: Some original ideas diluted with too many old ones
Summary: 2 Stars
Hallmark releases about 1 - 2 fantasy movies per year, and this one starring Beau Bridges is probably one of the worst ones of this decade. The story is simple enough, a widowed father and his two daughters travel to a magical kingdom while chased by trolls. In the kingdom, they meet up with the Minotaur, Medusa, Oberon and Titania from Shakespeare's play, more trolls, a dragon, nymphs, and an assortment of other characters. The father is a professor, and in the magical kingdom he is prophesized to save them from the trolls.
If this movie came out in 2008, I would say it was a cheap knockoff of the LOTR, Harry Potter, Narnia and Stardust movies. But since it was actually released in 2001, it seems more like a cheap knockoff of other Hallmark movies. Here are some examples. The principal character is a single father with two daughters. In Hallmark's "The Tenth Kingdom" and "Snow White", the principal characters were a single father and his daughter. In this movie, our traveling family encounter a wide array of mythical and fairy tale creatures while sailing on a ship thru a magic kingdom. In "The Tenth Kingdom", the father/daughter duo encounter a wide array of fairy tale creatures while traveling thru a magic kingdome. In Hallmark's "Gulliver's Travels", Gulliver encounters a wide array of characters while sailing around the world. Then we have the part about a prophecy. Again, we can look at Harry Potter, Narnia, LOTR, and every other fantasy movie/book out there. The worse copying was in the look of the trolls; they could have been taken straight from the set of "The Tenth Kingdom" without any changes in dialogue, makeup or costume design.
Probably worst of all was the execution of the movie. In its 3 hours of running time, it has four very long swordfight scenes that probably last a total of 20 minutes. In all 20 minutes, there is only one scene where someone actually gets cut by a sword; the professor gets sliced across the arm. I understand Hallmark tries to make family-friendly movies, but the action sequences in this film were so diluted as to be pitiful. Hallmark's Merlin was a totally acceptable movie for children, and it had very realistic combat scenes that showed people getting stabbed, cut, and hacked to death. And most of the swordfight scenes suffered from that most horrible of symptoms; opponents would aim to hit the other's sword instead of the other's body.
There were some original scenes in the movie that actually stood out for being good. Principle among them is the College of Medicine scene that occurs inside a book. Another original scene is how the professor's family takes Medusa with them on their quest. However, there were also many original scenes that were just laughably stupid; one good example is when the older daughter, Miranda, summons a mermaid to drive away the sea serpent. Her song and dance looked like a really bad MTV video.
The casting for this movie was so-so. The two actresses playing daughters Miranda and Cassandra did not look anything at all like either the mother or father. For most of the other characters, the costume and make-up more or less disguised true faces. The only bright spot was the actress casted for Medusa, Kira Clavell. Her multi-ethnic ancestry gives her an exotic look perfect for a deadly but beautiful creature.
Another letdown was the comedy, or lack thereof. There were dozens of scenes where a well-placed line or change of detail would have added some laughs. A good example is when Cassandra sits down to eat with the Minotaur. He offers her a slab of meat as they sit surrounded by piles of bones. A more comedic turn would be to have the Minotaur be a vegetarian, and instead of being surrounded by bones of all the animals he has eaten, he is surrounded by all the animals he has stolen from nearby farms to save them from slaughter.
So all in all, this is a bad movie. It is not worth your time to watch it, or your money to buy it.