The Last Unicorn

Tread lightly, Matt. You are dealing with a beloved classic. One I happened to dislike. I'm not saying I'm gonna pull punches in this review. But any complaints I make about a film this well-loved and remembered damn well better hold up to scrutiny.

Rewatching this was a long time coming. I saw this exactly once. In the theater when I seven. I, of course, disliked it. For a children's movie, it's not really child-friendly. Whatever I remembered about it I remembered wrong. I had thought the Unicorn died at the end. I guess I was not a very sophisticated 7 year old viewer in 1982. Although show me an 7 year old in 1982 that was.

What I will give the film credit for is its ambition. Mark Hamill did a famous Tonight Show appearance promoting Batman: Mask Of The Phantasm where he claimed that film was the first serious animated Western drama since Watership Down. He missed this film, as well as Bakshi's Fire And Ice, although for that one, he might have simply blocked it out of his memory.

The Rankin Bass animation is surprisingly decent, for that production. But let me be real. With THIS specific story, the animation needed to be beautiful, not passable. It is true it looks unlike other animated films of the era. But the character designs of the characters besides the Unicorn do not animate well and they are also shockingly and unnecessarily ugly and unappealing. The pacing is totally off due to poor direction and animation timing. The characters are unlikable. And the musical numbers feel both clumsy and intrusive. I am never gonna talk crap about the fact that the movie swung for the fences. It just did so with a whiffle bat hitting a bowling ball. That's the problem. If it was able to live up to its ambitions, I would have liked it.

I seem to recall the Watership Down from this era had similarly choppy animation, but rabbits were easier to animate than people, and it also did not have the timing problems this film does.

Finally, keep in mind, I am not judging this by all other animated films in 1982. The way I review stuff, new and old, is judging it by everything I've EVER seen. Is it a wonder it doesn't live up to that? It would be weird if it did. But no, the movie does not get a cookie from me for being all right in an era of terrible animation. Because I am reviewing it in 2023, and it does not hold up. You want to say that's unfair? Well, Roger Rabbit was made a mere 6 years later, and The Little Mermaid 7, and those still hold up fine. I don't think that's the unfair expectations fans of this movie will tell me it is.

The movie was rated G in 1982. If it were released today it would get an EASY PG-13. A HARD one in fact. To even get a PG rating they'd have to tone down almost everything. The G rating is bizarre to me in hindsight. Keep in mind 2001: A Space Odyssey got that rating too, and that was crazy way inappropriate for kids too. My whole bit is the MPAA is unfathomably corrupt and unhelpful to parents. And really, they have been since the beginning.

Sorry fans of the movie, I do not count myself among your number. **.