Legend (1985) review

The Lord of Darkness (Tim Curry) wants to slice off the horns of all the unicorns in the land and eliminate any form of light - because he's such a swell guy - but there to try to stop him are Jack O' the Green (Tom Cruise), free-spirited Princess Lili (Mia Sara) and a bunch of dwarves, except things don't go as planned and the Evil One intends to make "pure" Lili his wife.  The script by William Hjortsberg cobbles together various fantasy elements (a special ring, a magical spell, swords and armor, mythical creatures, etc.) but it's quite inert for what's supposed to be a fun adventure - visualist Scott makes sure every scene looks pretty dazzling, but when the sets and costumes and makeup effects are more captivating than the characters, something is wrong.  Children are the proper audience for this - I saw the theatrical edition on VHS tape decades ago so this time I opted for the "supposedly better" Director's Cut - and Curry's black-horned demon is kind of intimidating ... plus, everyone knows 80's kids were just built differently.