Krull was released on Blu-Ray on Sept 30th from Mill Creek Entertainment.
In the early 80s, two of the biggest “me too” film subgenres were space adventures and sword & sorcery epics. Riding the coattails of big hits like Star Wars, Star Trek, Excalibur, and Conan The Barbarian, came scores of knock-offs hoping to get a piece of the pie. It was probably inevitable that someone would try mashing both genres together.
Krull is not a particularly great movie, but it’s certainly an interesting curiosity. When marauding invaders from space — an army of “Slayers” — intent on taking over the planet, kidnap the newlywed queen Lyssa, it’s up to King Colwyn to defeat the evil aliens and rescue her. Sadly this alien force is left underdeveloped and without much of a compelling story or motivation — they’re just the bad guys.
After setting out on his journey, Colwyn must recruit a small army of men to fight with him from those he meets on his adventure — mostly from a gang of roving bandits. The scenes featuring these recruits are particularly interesting for their casting. Viewers are treated to fresh-faced versions of Liam Neeson and Robbie Coltrane.
The world is a mashup of science-fiction and fantasy, where anything can and does happen. The film includes many imaginative sequences involving evil doppelgangers, magic, a noble cyclops, the lair of a huge spider, Fire Mares (blazingly fast horses on which the heroes ride) and Colwyn’s weapon of choice, his Glaive: a large 5-bladed throwing star. While all of these elements are individually interesting and creative, it never really gels that well. It all feels a bit slapdash and random.
The heroes must seek out the Black Fortress, a mountain-like spacecraft on which the Slayers arrived, which also serves as their base of operations. The art design here is extremely impressive, a place full of spikes and sharp edges, traps, and dangerous chasms. The stunning sets share a gorgeous, harsh aesthetic which frankly tells us as much about the undeveloped alien horde as anything the script offers. Once the leader of the Slayers — known as The Beast — makes a veiled appearance, it does create a semblance of a face and personality for the bad guys, but it feels like too little, too late.
Ultimately though, I’m not sure if a critical analysis of Krull is particularly relevant. Its adult fandom is clearly tinged by nostalgia and childhood love. The film is imaginative and kid-friendly enough that young viewers will be enthralled and scared by it, and perhaps even develop the same love for it as their 80s-kid parents.
The Package
Krull arrived on Blu-Ray last week from Mill Creek Entertainment. The cover uses the classic poster artwork, which remains as gorgeous and iconic as ever — even if the film itself doesn’t quite deliver.
Sadly, this is not the kind of reverent release some fans may have hoped for. Make no mistake; this is a cheapie value edition. It looks and sounds good, but not great. Close inspection of the screencaps in this article (click and expand for full resolution) will demonstrate the roughness and macroblocking — though I must note that as these images are themselves slightly compressed .jpegs, the actual Blu-Ray frames will look just a little bit better, and these compression artifacts aren’t as apparent when the film is in motion.
Special Features
The barest of the bare. Not only are there no extra features, there are barely any menus or standard disc operations to speak of. No chapter selection, no subtitles or language options, no trailers — just a single option to play the movie.
While the picture resolution is a step up from DVD, the supplements are a big plummet down. The previously released Special Edition DVD included a commentary track and BTS extras.
Middling presentation and a total absence of features make this a tough recommend. Fans may want to simply stick to their Special Edition DVDs. But if the extras aren’t an issue and you just want the best presentation of the film itself, the budget pricing may ease the pain of the disc’s other shortcomings.
It seems unlikely that we’ll get another Blu-ray release anytime soon, so for fans of the SE DVD who don’t want to give up their features, I offer this suggestion of what I do in such circumstances: Buy the Blu-ray on the cheap, move it to a 2-disc case, and slip the DVD in. Voilà.