The Last Unicorn (1982)

ridiculous rating

The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

I enjoyed watching this film and would recommend other to give it a try , (as I am) but this movie, although enjoyable to watch due to the better than average acting fails to add anything new to its storyline that is all too familiar to these types of movies.

Story: It's very simple but honestly that is fine.

This is an animated feature film adapted by Peter S. Beagle from his own novel. There will be spoilers ahead:This animated film is a fairly good adaptation of Peter S. Beagle's novel, which in no small part is due to Beagle's doing the screenplay himself. He did an excellent job. The animation and character design are surprisingly good, given that it's Rankin and Bass (I'm not a huge fan of Rankin and Bass). The song score doesn't really work for me as part of the film, even though it's good enough.The voice cast is uniformly good to excellent. Standouts include Mia Farrow as the unicorn/Lady Amalthea, Alan Arkin as Schmendrick, Christopher Lee as Haggard, Robert Klein as the Butterfly and Don Messick in a nice turn as a cat. Rene Auberjonois is good as a skeleton, as are Jeff Bridges as Prince Lir and Tammy Grimes as Molly.The plot is that there is a unicorn who is told by a strange Butterfly that she is the last unicorn and the others were captured by the "Red Bull". She decides to leave her forest to find out if she is the last unicorn, but is caught by Momma Fortuna (voiced by Angela Lansbury) and caged in her circus of fantastic creatures. She's befriended by Schmendrick, who frees her and she frees the other animals There's a beautiful sequence with a harpy trying to kill the unicorn in here.Schmendrick joins the unicorn and they are later joined by Molly. Schmendrick uses a magic spell to save the unicorn from the "Red Bull" (the animated sequences involving the bull are great). The unicorn turns into a human woman and she becomes the Lady Amalthea. The three of them come to Haggard's keep and become part of his household.Prince Lir falls in love with Lady Amalthea, who begins to feel the same way towards him. Schmendrick solves a riddle and finds out how to get past the "Red Bull". Lady Amalthea, Schmendrick, Lir and Molly travel into the "Red Bull's" area, where the quest is fulfilled, various plot lines are concluded and I won't spoil any of that here in case you haven't seen the film.Shout Factory just released a Blu-Ray/DVD combo, "The Enchanted Edition" and it's excellent. It and the film are well worth checking out. Recommended.

I first discovered this film a couple years ago. I had seen so many people posting images and talking about it that I decided that I should watch the movie myself. It wasn't just curiosity that led me to it, though. My mom, being a fantasy lover, had me hooked on fantasy since I was a baby. Unicorns are by far my favorite mythical creatures. They're graceful, and they are the true symbol of innocence and purity. An animated movie about unicorns seemed promising to me.At first, I thought this film was weird, but in a nice way. I began watching it more and more, and I became more hooked on it. Anyone who knows Rankin Bass movies knows their animation isn't perfect, but at times, it really is nice in this film. The songs are corny, and I often skip them, save one. I usually let the duet with Lir and Amalthea play, since it's a cute song, despite it being incredibly corny. I don't let the songs ruin the movie for me, though. I also like the maturity with this film. The word "damn" is said a few times, and there's a bit of nudity when Amalthea turns human. It looks like a kid's movie, but feels like an adult movie that takes its audience seriously, unlike most of the garbage that's thrown at us today.As far as the story staying true to the book, I discovered the movie first, so I had no idea how the book would be. I did read it, along with the graphic novel, and I must say that this movie came pretty close to the book. I believe it's because the book's author actually helped out with the movie. They did leave out quite a lot, but from what I remember, some things in the book wouldn't have worked in the movie and would've just taken up more time.This movie is by no means perfect, but it certainly is an underrated classic. It's also one of my personal favorite movies. I recommend this movie to any fantasy lover out there, or anyone who enjoys Rankin Bass movies. In case anyone wants to see another unicorn based film, Legend perfectly captures the beauty of unicorns. It's an old 80's film just like this one, and it is actually Tom Cruise's first film. It also has Tim Curry as a freaky looking devil. Definitely check Legend and The Last Unicorn out. They're true classics.

I often don't give movies like this one 10/10 stars, but The Last Unicorn is a definite exception. With its flawless and dazzling animation, lovable characters, talented voice cast and beautiful soundtrack, this is a movie that at first might seem pretty nerdy but quickly gets better as it goes on.When a lone unicorn (voiced by Mia Farrow from Rosemary's Baby and The Haunting of Julia), discovers that she may be the last unicorn on earth, she goes on a quest to find her kind before it's too late. She gets captured for a carnival show though and meets a clumsy magician on the way, and later on an aging but once-beautiful woman who both quickly become her closest friends. As they go into the mystery of what's happened to the other unicorns, the plot gets darker and darker and a suspenseful thrill-ride. For an animated movie I was really surprised at how detailed the scenery and characters were, the main unicorn herself especially. And the movie has its comedic moments (the magician being nearly smothered to death in the boobs of a talking tree was pretty disturbing but funny). And who doesn't love the butterfly, or the cat with the eyepatch? There are so many colorful characters and animals in this movie! I'd highly recommend checking this movie out, it's definitely worth watching, even if you aren't a fan of this sort of plot it has something for everyone.

"The Last Unicorn" is an animated film with great drawings, decent animation, a mediocre plot, and horrible pacing. The pacing is dictated by the music. The music is both a strength and a weakness.The plot could easily have been condensed into way less than that of a feature film. Frequent breaks for musical numbers is the only reason it reaches 90 minutes. And even then, the non-music parts of it are rather slow. I'm not saying the music in the movie is a bad thing, but it both lives and dies by it. On one hand the music isn't that great by itself, but on the other hand the movie seems designed to fit itself around the tone of the music. And in that way it fits very well.The one thing I loved about this movie was the drawings. Especially when they showed the darker and evil characters. The drawings for the red bull and harpy Celaeno were amazing. The contrast to the unicorn and her overly contoured childlike drawing helped set them apart and make them amazing as they were.The movie is full of holes if you are thinking about it too hard. It's too slow, the music isn't that good, Molly Grue cries out "Schmendrick!" at least 10,000 times. It's one of those movies with a good concept and good morals, but if you try to dissect it you will succeed. I'd bet young girls will love it. To an adult it's not as unbearable as the title may suggest, but it's nothing spectacular.