The Hero of Time (2009)

Too many fans seem to be blown away

Such a frustrating disappointment

If the ambition is to provide two hours of instantly forgettable, popcorn-munching escapism, it succeeds.

Great story, amazing characters, superb action, enthralling cinematography. Yes, this is something I am glad I spent money on.

Ever since I was a kid, I've wanted to see a movie based on "The Legend of Zelda," so you can probably imagine my surprise and delight when I stumbled across this film online. It looks like the movie I've wanted to see for years, but is it really any good? Well, yes and no.The thing to keep in mind when watching this movie is that it is an independent film made by "Zelda" fans on a really low budget. The acting ranges from passable to awful, most of the special effects consist of obvious green screen effects and the editing and camera-work are often clumsy. The plot is fairly faithful to the fan-favorite "Ocarina of Time" game, but that means it eventually consists of the heroes running around and collecting things so they can kill the bad guy and save the world. The characters have little motivation beyond that, so they come off as kind of bland.And yet, I can't bring myself to hate this movie. Everyone involved in this film put a lot of effort into it, and their love for the source material is evident. It is flawed, but I have to appreciate the fact that it exists at all."The Hero of Time" is definitely a movie for "Zelda" fans. I don't think I can recommend it to anyone else, but it's worth a look for fans of the games. It's easy to find online, so check it out.

So, yeah, there is a movie about The legend of Zelda. Yep, that's right. It's a fan film created with almost no budget, so you gotta lower your expectations. I watched the whole movie, and i guess it was OK, but nothing more. The important thing is that they tried. The thing is - they struggle so hard just to follow the games storyline instead of taking the liberties to create their own story, which makes it boring and sometimes really annoying because the only thing Link seems to do is running around and doing what people tell him to do, like in the games. This is a sad fact, It could have been so much more. But it failed at the story, just because they tried so hard to stay true to the original game that the story just becomes lame and boring. And this is spoken by a true Zelda-fan, I know that it's hard to interpret the video game characters personalities (especially Link), the storyline etc but they could of at least twisted the story a little bit or make up their own story with elements from the game, like Sage of Darkness did. While it's not awful - it's not so good either. Awful camera angles (and the camera isn't of top notch quality either) that really annoyed me, average acting, they use way too much greenscreen and CGI effects which make the movie look fake and cheap, but the CGI is okay, since this is a budget fan film. I understand that Nintendo don't want to make a movie for a while, since so many awful Hollywood movies based on games are released more and more often. But god damnit, they did an average job. At least they tried, and i have full respect for that. So, is it worth watching? Well, if you got the time over and is a huge Zelda-fan, then it might be worth a watch. But if you're not really a hardcore zelda-fan i think you might want to skip this one, but hey, give it a try anyway. I would like to thank them for trying and for actually doing something instead of waiting on Nintendo releasing an actual movie. Do you remember last time Link spoke, in that god awful TV-series cartoon? You don't want anything like that to happen again, which i think is one of the main reasons Nintendo doesn't want to make a movie for now at least. Final vote: 5/10.

I seen this last night and I got to say, they did great. The atmosphere was terrific the filming you would expect on a great BBC Special, and the music? They had both great originality while they snuck in their homages to both the music substantial to the game and its comical background music when Link obtains his items. However there are a few flaws that I would like to point out. One was my biggest issue, Link talking. Now don't get me wrong the guy is a great actor, but I always pictured Link as a mute. A silent but noble warrior that expresses what he feels in his actions. The other was the way Sheik/Zelda treated Link before she started helping him. In the Games Sheik treated Link with Honor and respect and was well aware of what happened to him on the temple of time. While the movies Sheik was upset at him for leaving Zelda behind, following her instructions while he was at it. The Third was Saria, I just don't see her as a mother. Like before I played the games and thought Saria was more of a love interest to Link. Finally they should have extended the sage quest. I thought the sage of fire had a great personality and was wondering what the other sages were like. Other than that I give it 5 0ut of 10 but since its a Zelda movie it gets an extra 5.

The Hero of Time is a fan-made film based on The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. If your first assumption about a film like this is that you must be a fan of the Zelda games to enjoy/appreciate it, then you would be correct. But you must also be the type of viewer who has already had the bar set low from previous expectations. What I mean is that if you've never seen a movie that seems like it was put together by a bunch of art school students and drama class non-actors, you will think it's garbage.With that being said, a TON of time and effort was clearly put into this thing. The special effects are good and the music is remarkable. George R. Powell spent over a year recording the 90+ min. score and it's truly amazing.The locations used for filming present a surprisingly decent fantasy world setting for Hyrule albeit some nit-picky things like the inclusion of "Give us this day our daily bread" on the Church/Cathredral in almost every shot of the temple. But overall, the setting is very good.The casting was a mixed bag and I'll get to the main problem in a little but first I'd like to award some praise to the guy who played Ganondorf. His facial structure was perfect for the part and his costuming (as well as the costumes for most of the other characters) were above average. Princess Zelda was pretty and not too shabby with the acting although some will/have disagreed on this. The tubby Asian guy as the Goron was just a terrible idea. As a matter of fact, this is one of quite a few things that really pull you out of the setting and into an art class screening of your friends who just made a movie. "LOL look at Harold, he's a big Goron with dirt on his face". The guy just doesn't care and it's obvious. They would have been better off just leaving the non human-like characters out of the movie.Now to the biggest thing pulling the movie down.. Link! David Blane's acting is terrible. His lines are terrible. His hair looks stupid. And the fact that he is also the producer really makes it seem obvious that he gave himself the leading role when quite a few of his friends playing the other characters probably would have been better suited. He just overall sucks, and makes the movie seem like much less than what it should be. EVERYBODY I know who has seen this agrees that he is the worst thing about the movie and since he's the main character and the hero we all played as and came to love in the games, its a major blow to the film's reception and overall reputation. Not to mention that makeup!Now for everything bad about this there is something surprisingly good and the overall plot and execution of the Ocarina of Time translation to live-action film is very admirable. More important to consider is the fact that so much went into this film and so little came out of it in the end, and I don't mean the movie itself. Not only was no money made, nobody really cared. This has been out for over a year and still has yet to receive 5 ratings on IMDb. Sure, the Zelda fan-sites reviewed it over the year's time, but even they were harshly critical. But the biggest kick in the teeth was from Nintendo themselves. They demanded that the film be taken off the internet completely despite the fact that is was being distributed for free and absolutely no profit was involved at all. I will have to admit that I lost quite a bit of respect for Nintendo because of this. Regardless, it's not hard to find if you look, and the people who really want to see it will probably find it if they search the internet good enough.In the end, it's all about appreciation and while it's an easy target for (severe) criticism, the fact that it exists at all is one thing. But the fact that we got a genuine epic that is almost 2 hours long and sincerely dedicated to something Zelda fans have grown to love over the years makes this film something special that I suspect will draw more attention in time. Until then, it's another one of those "underground of underground" type things that makes it all the more cooler to those of us who know about it and think it's pretty damn awesome.