Apollo Movie Guide's Review of Magical Legend of the Leprechauns, The

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Magical Legend of the Leprechauns, The

(aka )

Apollo Score:

Readers' Rating: 83/100

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Magical Legend of the Leprechauns, The

Some reviews are more difficult to write than others, and this is one of the harder ones. The biggest problem is that the review version provided to the media is a good half hour longer than the final version that’s in video stores. Half an hour is a lot of time to lose and I fear that most of the scenes that will be lost are going to be the small character bits that make the film a little bit more fun.

As the title tells us, this is a film about leprechauns, about Ireland and about mischief. It's the tale of a war between the trooping and solitary fairies, between Earth and sky, between leprechauns and fairies. The plot is simple, predictable and derivative. The war is triggered by forbidden love; between a leprechaun youth and the fairy princess, sending us down the path first trodden by Shakespeare in Romeo and Juliet. In the middle of this war falls Jack Woods (Randy Quaid), a real estate developer who is in Ireland to look for vacation homes for American tourists. He promptly falls for the local beauty (Orla Brady) who, through misunderstandings, hates him on first sight. So there we have it – a tale of two pairs of lovers set against a backdrop of war in Faerie.

The strength of this film is in the acting. Colm Meaney is fabulous as Seamus Muldoon, chief of the Leprechauns. You really believe he is a leprechaun, and Zoe Wanamaker is perfectly cast as his wife. Unfortunately the rest of the film doesn't measure up to their standards. Quaid and Brady are competent but their sub-plot is too predictable for us to really put all that much effort into watching them. Though Roger Daltrey gets hype in his role as King Boric, his lacklustre performance is boring. The interplay between the Queen and Chamberlain is much more entertaining. Then there is Whoopi Goldberg as the Grand Banshee – Supreme Fairy of all of Ireland. Despite her high billing, her performance is essentially a reprise of her Guinan role from Star Trek, only this time with wings.

The special effects are well below par for a production of this size, although the cinematography is good. We get an excellent view of the lush greenery that is Ireland., and for most of the film, the treatment of Faerie is excellent. Then we come to the lair of the Grand Banshee – a subterranean Hotel Splendide. It's jarring to say the least. I don't know why The Magical Legend of the Leprechauns is structured this way, but until that point I was willing to forgive the weaknesses in plot and effects for the view of Faerie. Then came the Hotel Splendide and the film lost its second-greatest strength.

This is not a bad film, but with a little higher production quality and more consistency it would have been so much better.

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