Willow

George Lucas is a filmmaker with a flair for good adventures. The Star Wars films are good examples of that. In Willow Lucas takes some of the ideas from those films further. Warwick Davis and his fellow dwarf actors, for instance, have been seen before, but the joy of recognition is not bad either, and I willingly let myself be swept away to Lucas' fairy-tale world, where the forces of good and evil fight for supremacy.

The evil and powerful Queen Bavmorda orders a baby killed because the girl bears a special mark, which means she has been sent by the good to fight evil. A nursemaid, however, seizes the chance to save the baby, whom she sends off down the river in a reed boat. Does the story sound familiar? What a borrowing! The girl Elora Danan is, just like Moses, found by Willow, a dwarf of the Nelwyn race. Willow, who dreams of becoming a great sorcerer, is given the task of bringing the girl back to her people, the Daikini. Along the way he needs all the sorcery he can muster, when he realises that Elora Danan is the saviour of the good Daikini. Willow also gets help, though, from the opportunistic warrior Madmartigan and later from Queen Bavmorda's brave daughter Sorsha.

Willow is a handsome film that deserves widescreen, if you are not seeing it in the cinema, that is. It is more of a fairy tale for adults than for children, for it is an almost scary film that is also inspired by J. R. R. Tolkien. Fortunately the film also contains a good dose of humour.