Product: The Last Unicorn [VHS] (1982)
Rating: 1.0
Ugh. Didn't like, and it's nothing to do with the DVD quality
I really felt like this movie wasted my time without giving anything worthwhile in return. Because it's by Arthur Rankin of Rankin-Bass, I hoped for a truly classic story, like Rudolph or Year Without a Santa Claus, and all of the endearingly unforgettable elements that go with it (like Heat Miser and Snow Miser, or the Island of Misfit Toys). Instead, this is a drawn-out, poorly-architected story that poses as a fairy tale, and instead is like someone's stoned or drunken epic hallucination. It's not appropriate for young children, with a scary roaring ghostly bull and a couple of other random ugly monsters, but it's not a strong enough story to win the interest of an adult.The Last Unicorn searching for the other unicorns (since they're immortal - what happened to them?) is a premise with so much possibility. But this movie just blew it with a combination of burlesque (a hippie butterfly who sounds like Cheech singing clues to the unicorn, "Schmedrick the Magician" who can't ever make his spells come out right, etc.) and plain crummy plot development. The unicorn accidentally gets turned into a naked blonde woman with a striking cartoon-y resemblance to Stevie Nicks, and after falling in love with the prince in the castle where she, Schmedrick and Maggie (a good-hearted outlaw picked up from an incompetent outlaw band in the forest) are hoping to find the other unicorns, she wants to forget she was a unicorn at all.But the story keeps right on wasting time with a skeleton that can't stop laughing when it's asked for magical answers, the dreamy cynicism of the castle's gruesome "king", and the ramblings of a pirate-y cat.It just goes on and on, but not in any meaningful way. The unicorn lost my interest and sympathy when she never seemed to care about the people who were trying to help her, the magician also kept on refusing to try at crucial moments, and the ending - where she is turned back into a unicorn and has freed the lost others - is not satisfying. You never see her meet the other unicorns or return to her forest to resume protecting the ordinary animals abandoned there, nor does she say thank you or goodbye to the prince. The cheesy soundtrack annoyed me beyond belief.I know how cynical this sounds after the many 5-star glowing reviews, but I'm sticking by it. It's not a classic story, not even a good story, and not a good movie.