Krull (Rifftrax Live)

Film Year:  1983
Genre:  Fantasy
Director:  Peter Yates
Starring:  Ken Marshall, Lysette Anthony, Freddie Jones, David Battley, Liam Neeson, Robbie Coltrane
Rifftrax Year:  2018
Riffers:  Michael J. Nelson, Kevin Murphy, Bill Corbett

The Movie

On the far away world of Krull, a prince is to wed a princess, but an alien beast and his army of Slayers invade and take the princess captive to marry the beast in a constantly moving castle.  The prince then leads a quest to rescue the princess and slay the beast.

Halfway through the Rifftrax the riffers mix a little bit of video games with Shakespeare, having the princess run through the castle singing "Mario, Mario, where for art thou Mario?"  Once I made the connection between the two I couldn't unsee it.  In many ways Krull is a better version of the Super Mario Bros. movie than the actual Super Mario Bros. movie.  Here we have our hero chasing after a princess stolen by a monster, and in seeking her he has to level up at several points to reach his destination and kill the giant reptile creature.  One even looks at Robbie Coltrane's character, who wears a distinct pattern of red and blue and features a little mustache.  If you put a red hat on him he'd be Mario's spitting image.

But the Super Mario Bros. game wasn't released until 1985, which means Krull similarities are just a coincidence (or the game designers were huge Krull fans).  In context of the year it was released what Krull really feels like is a blatant attempt by a studio to groom a franchise into the next Star Wars.  If you've come for insight as to what differentiates Krull and Star Wars you've come to the wrong place.  I guess Star Wars is clearly better, though in many ways watching the two films is a similar experience for me.  At some points I even enjoyed Krull, with its swashbuckling spirit and some cool costumes and set design, though for the most part it's a very padded and dull movie that would greatly benefit from an editor's touch.

As the riffers like to point out repeatedly, Krull was an early film for actors Liam Neeson and Robbie Coltrane, both of which got the opportunity to feature in far better fantasy franchises in the future (Star Wars and Batman for Neeson, and Harry Potter for Coltrane).  They don't do a lot in the film, though Neeson gets more screentime and dialogue than Coltrane does.

The Live Show

This Rifftrax Live is one of those deals where you either see it in theaters or you don't see it at all, which makes this review kind of pointless unless you're working yourself up to see an eventual reairing.  One takes place Saturday August 25th (I type this immediately after my showing), though other showings might happen in the future depending on rerun rights.

Krull is a lengthy movie, which means like the Live shows of Starship Troopers or Godzilla the boys pretty much dive right in after a bit of opening banter.  To say it off the bat the movie is quite suitable for the Live format.  It's colorful and looks great on the big screen (far better than the previous Live movie, Space Mutiny), and the film itself is daffy and full of long sequences without dialogue, letting riffs fly.  Though the draggier the film tends to get does tend to let the riffs become tiresome as they riff long periods of the same image over and over again.  By the time you get to endless superspeed horses at the end of the film I was really aching for Krull to be more diverse.

However Krull is pretty easily the better of the two Live shows this year.  The laughter is quite strong from the get-go and the level is maintained fairly consistently for a while before one realizes that the movie doesn't quite know when a scene should end.  But still there is a lot of fun stuff here from the flaming horses to a giant spider to a silly looking final creature.  Riffs are plentiful with plenty of howlers and some good hearty chuckles in between.  There is also probably one of the biggest audience riff rejections I've ever heard in a Live show, involving a cave and a certain Thai soccer team that you might remember from the news last month.

Krull is flawed due to the films bloat though I'd say the Live show is definitely one to experience, so definitely seek out the re-airing if you can.  2018 was a solid year for Rifftrax Live.  Can't wait to see what 2019 has in store!

Good