80s Double Feature - The Ice Pirates and Krull

 During my workout sessions on the M5, I watched The Ice Pirates and Krull over the last week or so. Both of these movies contain many of the necessary ingredients for great movies, but each fails in its own way.

The Ice Pirates (1984), directed by Steward Rafill, written by Rafill and Stanford Sherman, features a cast that would go on to become bigger stars. If you haven't seen this 40 year old movie, don't worry. I'm not going to give any spoilers.

Robert Ulrich plays the pirate captain Jason.

Mary Crosby plays Princess Karina.

 

Anjelica Huston plays pirate Maida, but doesn't really get to do much.

Ron Perlman plays another pirate, Zeno, and Michael D. Roberts plays Roscoe (in the picture below, left). John Matuszak plays Killjoy. (That is not Matuszak on the right).

 The Ice Pirates manages to take some good actors (and John Matuszak) and run them through a silly story that doesn't make much sense. There are pirates and space ships and robots and lasers and swords. There's even a vehicle with huge wheels and a horned skull running down people. So, one's first thought, naturally, is: What's not to love? Well, a lot. First, it's a parody, so it should be funny. I mean, we've got a busy intersection collision between Star Wars, Space Balls (3 years before Space Balls), Star Crash, and Mad Max. It should be tremendous fun but it's not. 

It is mildly entertaining. Most of the humor is on the lame side, but I did laugh once or twice. It is fun at a jr. high school level--that's probably why I laughed a couple times. I remember watching it back in the 80s on TV connected to a thing called a VCR. My cousin Bob rented it at the video store so he could show it to me as I was out of the country when it came out. That's the main reason I wanted to see it again, so I could remember that time with Bob. Give it a try if you want. It doesn't leave you any stupider than you were to begin with for having watched it. I give it 2.75 chuckles out of five.

Krull (1983), directed by Peter Bates, written by Stanford Sherman, stars Kenneth Marshall as Colwyn and Lysette Anthony as Lyssa.
 

 

 The bit players in the show are better known to me than the stars.

 Francesca Annis (with Freddie Jones behind the glass globe) doesn't get nearly enough screen time as the woman in the web.

Liam Neeson and Alun Armstrong are bandits who join the hero in his quest to save the world and the galaxy with his multi-pronged pocketknife. Liam went on to take some small roles in action adventure flicks where he could put his set of very special skills to work. Alun seems to have been cast as a villain in subsequent roles that I remember. I believe I first saw him in The Duellists, which I have discussed previously, and I also recall him in The Hollow Crown and The Mummy Returns.
 

Robbie Coltrane got bigger roles, including that of a friendly giant in an obscure film series featuring a boy wizard, and he landed a nice spot as both a villain and friend in a couple Bond movies. 

As for the movie itself, I'm afraid it makes less sense than The Ice Pirates. This one also came out when I was out of the country, so I missed the hype when it was first released. As I watched it, I had to wonder if the movie was hoping to spawn a popular video game. I know it's a favorite for many, but it seemed poorly written and not well executed. There were some cool ideas, but they never managed to ring the awesome bell. The most interesting character was the unskilled magician. We never got enough information or character development from even the main characters to really care about any of them. The Krull device for which the movie must be named, was quite effective against the minions of evil when the hero finally got to use it, but was mostly a dud against the creature feature villain, who instead was slain by the power of true love. I thought that if the baddie had been only a little more committed to taking out the hero, he could've ended the adventure much sooner with a victory. His casual approach to terminating the hero hardly seemed like the machinations of a galactic tyrant. I give the movie 2.5 out of 5 multi-tools.

I was hoping that I would've enjoyed both of these more than the little I did. Instead, I found two more movies I won't need to watch again.