Legend

What with the film's cotton-candy mise en the scene, rhyming goblins (“Mortal world turned to ice/Here be goblin paradise”), sexless pixies and elementary light/dark metaphors that reference the order of its universe, Legend is a gothic fairy tale brought to life. Read full review

Despite all its sound and fury, Legend is a movie I didn't care very much about. All of the special effects in the world, and all of the great makeup, and all of the great Muppet creatures can't save a movie that has no clear idea of its own mission and no joy in its own accomplishment. Read full review

Ultimately, LEGEND--a pet project of Scott's that took years to research, shoot, and edit--is done in by the director's ambition. What might have been a pleasantly innocuous children's story becomes an enormous, lumbering FX machine into which the actors, particularly a nervous Tom Cruise, seem to disappear. Read full review

The film seems just right for kids, though what older fans of Cruise ("Risky Business") and Scott will make of it is far less clear. [22 Apr 1986, p.B4]

Legend is a fairytale produced on a grand scale, set in some timeless world and peopled with fairies, elves and goblins, plus a spectacularly satisfying Satan. At the same time, the basic premise is alarmingly thin, a compendium of any number of ancient fairytales.

Although awesome in its fantasy splendor, Legend has even less substance than Scott's last film, "Blade Runner." And whereas that detective thriller of the future offered a truly original vision, the look of Legend, as gorgeous as it is, seems a distillation of all the illustrations for all the fairy tales ever read to a child. [18 Apr 1986, p.C4]

Mr. Cruise goes through all this nonsense gamely, as if it were an initiation into a fraternity he wants very much to join. Read full review

Fascinating in the way only a wrongheaded film by a great filmmaker can be, Legend lends beauty to such imagery, but the story keeps dragging it back to the mystical land of kitsch. Read full review

It stinks from top to bottom. Even Tom Cruise ("Risky Business"), one of the most appealing actors of his generation, can now claim to have made his first truly awful film. And the same goes for director Ridley Scott ("Alien"), who specializes in artful, heartless movies. Legend, however, isn't the least bit artful. [18 Apr 1986, p.N]

It's not fair in a film like this, a shambles from beginning to end, to judge the performances, but as Tom Cruise has now become a big star, something should probably be said of his characterization. Something. [21 Apr 1986, p.C12]

Legend may turn out to be legendary, but not in the way the filmmakers intended. As a flight of fancy, it has the balletic grace of the goony bird, crashing on takeoff and spending the next 90 minutes in a fluttering tizzy on the ground. [24 Apr 1986, p.D3]