The Science Fiction Horror and Fantasy Film Review
Epic Fantasy refers to any type of fantasy adventure that takes place in a Fantasy Otherworld. This is given a variety of different names – High Fantasy, Adventurer Fantasy, Heroic Fantasy. There is also the use of the term Sword and Sorcery, which is used to refer to more red-blooded treatments such as Conan the Barbarian or is often applied in a dismissive way to works that use cliche fantasy elements.
Epic Fantasy has a long history on the written pages, although what we think of today was popularised and its tropes set in place by J.R.R. Tolkien with The Lord of the Rings (1954-6). The popularity of this resulted in numerous copies. Elements were then boiled down to character types in a playable gaming system with Dungeons and Dragons (1974) and later by videogames.
Epic Fantasy takes place in a secondary world. In written fantasy, most book series come with detailed maps that depict the land where the story takes place. The land is usually one that is self-contained but sometimes is tied to this world – in the case of Narnia is reached through a Portal, or in the case of Conan’s Hyboria is to said exist in the ancient past. Also included here are Arabian Nights adventures that take place in a mythical version of the Islamic Golden Age and various Arthurian Legends are set in the mythic England of Camelot.
The land are usually filled with an array of exotic creatures, which can include Elves, Fairies, Dwarves, Dragons, Goblins and Trolls, Orcs and assorted mythical creatures, as well as ones invented for the particular story. The peoples of the land usually live in some type of feudal world where the dominant form of government is always a monarchy, where swordmaking has evolved but it is before the industrial revolution. Magic is widespread to varying degrees and any adventure can at least be counted on to have a Magician join the party where sometimes the nemesis they are fighting is a sorcerer or Witch.
Screen treatments began with various Arabian Nights adventures in the 1920s, reaching a peak with the works of Ray Harryhausen in the 1950s. Following the success of Star Wars (1977), there was a boom in Epic Fantasy filmmaking in the late 1970s/early 1980s. A new boom began in the 2000s following the success of The Lord of the Rings films.
This has a concept so ridiculous it might actually work – a fantasy version of Moby Dick. The sea captain’s obsessive hunt for a whale is transplanted to a fantasy kingdom and the whale made into a dragon
A mockbuster from The Asylum that sets out to copy Peter Jackson’s The Hobbit such that Jackson and co sued, forcing The Asylum to change the title in several territories
Tim Burton takes on Lewis Carroll but Carroll gets lost beneath Burton doing his usual quirky eccentric thing and a plot that seems to want to turn Alice’s adventures into a modern epic fantasy
Sequel to the 2010 Tim Burton Alice in Wonderland. This has even less in common with Lewis Carroll’s book sequel than its predecessor did – a total of two scenes. The sets and effects are just pretty eye candy
One of a series of low-budget sword-and-sorcery films of the 1980s. This predates both Red Sonja and Xena with its depiction of a fierce warrior woman. Produced by Roger Corman
Excruciating sequel to The Beastmaster that transports Marc Singer’s Dar to contemporary L.A. The whole film is wrecked by an attitude that seems unable to take the proceedings seriously.
Don Coscarelli, director of the culty Phantasm, made this as part of the early 1980s sword and sorcery fad with Marc Singer as a muscular hero who has the ability to communicate with animals
Cheaply made attempt to turn the fairytale into a fantasy adventure where Beauty becomes a kick-ass heroine who joins the Beast in defeating an evil lord and witch
An adaptation of the classic epic legend Beowulf that bizarrely recasts the story as a Christopher Lambert-starring action movie and sets it in a post-apocalyptic future
After the success of the motion captured animated The Polar Express, Robert Zemeckis turned his attentions to the classic legend. Armed with a Neil Gaiman script and a host of name actors in the mocap suits, the result is a soaring fantasy
Forgotten Disney animated film that was not a success at the time it came out. It seeks to tell an epic fantasy tale in the J.R.R. Tolkien vein but ends up falling too much in the shadow of Star Wars
A cheaply made Arabian Nights fantasy adventure that came out seeking to copy ride the coattails of the success of Ray Harryhausen’s The 7th Voyage of Sinbad
Before the films, this was an earlier BBC tv mini-series version of the C.S. Lewis book, one of a series of four adaptations. This is faithful to the story but suffers from impoverished effects
The second of the BBC’s tv adaptations of C.S. Lewis’s Narnia books, the slightest of the works where the story is reduced to two half-hour episode
This was the third of the four BBC tv adaptations of C.S. Lewis’s Narnia books. The tv versions treats the books with quite reasonable faithfulness but suffer from extremely cheap looking effects
This was the fourth and final, as well as the best of the BBC’s tv adaptations of C.S. Lewis’s Narnia books, which works well enough despite the impoverished production values
The second of the Narnia films. Director Andrew Adamson seems so intent on copying Peter Jackson that the film becomes all epic fantasy flourishes and battle scenes to the exclusion of all else – even much of C.S. Lewis’s book
The film adaptation of C.S. Lewis’s book sought to appeal to audiences for the Lord of the Rings films but between Lewis’s heavy-handed Christian allegories and Andrew Adamson’s inexperience as a director fails to fly
Another lacklustre entry in the banal Lord of the Rings Lite franchise from C.S. Lewis’s books, a plodding run of the mill fantasy adventure for the most part. The mediocre reception killed off interest in the series
This would be the last of the films made by stop-motion animator Ray Harryhausen where he turns his creations towards conducting another Greek Mythology adventure. With an all-star cast playing the Greek gods.
Heavily disappointing remake of the Ray Harryhausen film where the replacement of Harryhausen’s stop-motion animation with CGI fails to achieve any magic
The second live-action tv adaptation of Terry Pratchett’s Discworld books (in fact combining two books). This is uneven and oddly padded but beautifully produced
Adaptation of Robert E. Howard’s pulp adventure stories and the film that made Arnold Schwarzenegger a star. The script from Oliver Stone takes unevenly from Howard but director John Milius gives the film a brutal, primal majesty
This revival of Conan the Barbarian is a dismal effort that gets little of what made the character work, while Jason Momoa gives little impression he is taking proceedings seriously
This sequel to Conan the Barbarian makes the mistake of watering the primal brutalism down to a PG rating and what results ends up being a pedestrian comic-book adventure
Lucio Fulci departs from the splatter genre to make a venture into the Italian sword and sorcery film of the era. As with any Fulci film, this is expectedly plotless and incoherent but with occasional moments of imagination
Billed as the Chinese Lord of the Rings, this is an historically-based fantasy film that tries to out-Hollywood Hollywood in terms of effects, design and costuming and looks stunningly epic in scale
A dragon fantasy where Stranger Things’ Millie Bobby Brown plays the damsel who sets out to save herself. A fantasy film made for people who don’t like fantasy films
The film that Jim Henson chose to make as successor to The Muppets. An astonishing technical leap beyond Muppetry to create an entire fantasy world in living, breathing detail all only inhabited by puppets
This is a British-made fantasy film in the vein of Lord of the Rings and Game of Thrones but conducted on a B-budget where it does seem to be making an effort
From the people who made the Mythica films, this is a modest and well made fantasy film about a young farmboy thrust into the role of dragonslayer that does good things on a limited budget
A remake of the popular 1980s sword and sorcery film that was originally produced by Roger Corman. This version is directed by makeup effects artist Steven Kostanski who fills it with an amazing range of creature effects
This attempted to do something different to the usual formula US kiddie animation film and creates its own fantasy world. Unfortunately, while the ambition is admirable, the film flopped badly
Quite a decent low-budget epic fantasy film from promising Scottish director Lawrie Brewster. This manages to create a reasonable suspension of disbelief on modest resources
This places an amusing spin on the standard dragon fantasy, having the dragon and its would-be slayer team up to fool the peasantry out of money. The Sean Connery-voiced dragon looks like a big CGI cartoon
Sequel to a largely forgotten fantasy series. While never transcending formula, this fares somewhat better than the previous sequel largely because CGI effects have advanced since the original
Quite why the largely forgotten DragonHeart has produced four sequels is beyond me. Where does such a loyal fanbase come from that they keep churning out more of these films?
An overlooked fantasy film. Although the spirit of Star Wars stands over it, it offers a dark and gritty vision of the Middle Ages and soars with a full flight of fantasy with some stunning dragon effects
This sets out to parody the Lord of the Rings fantasy. Or at least you think that is what it is trying to do. All suspension of disbelief is killed by a series of grating and anachronistic quips
An anthology film produced by Charles Band where assorted directors turn in seven episodes all centred around a videogame warrior put through a series of tests by The Devil
Film based on the enormously popular roleplaying game, this appears to have been quickly thrown together in advance of The Lord of the Rings films but is a shabby effort filled with some disastrous off-tone casting
A new film based on the role-playing game. The first film several years ago is poorly regarded. This is an attempt to reboot a film series but suffers badly from being handed to two comedy directors and their flip treatment
The third film based on the roleplaying game. The previous two films were forgettable but this is surprisingly good, taking a far darker tone than the usual sword-and-sorcery adventure and adding considerable moral complexity
This TV mini-series adaptation of the Ursula Le Guin books is an insult. This was quickly mounted on the back of the success of The Lord of the Rings films but feels like tv filler that has zero affinity for Le Guin’s richly cultured world
A dragon fantasy adapted from a popular book series that has Lord of the Rings wannabe stamped all over it and only unimaginatively follows in Peter Jackson’s footsteps
Animator Ralph Bakshi collaborates with fantasy illustrator Frank Frazetta to make a fine and underrated sword and sorcery film that comes with a vigour that puts in the best spirit of Robert E. Howard
Unassumingly well-made venture into the epic fantasy genre from Pitof, director of Catwoman. A slim story played with conviction and some particularly good dragon effects
One of Rankin-Bass’s animated films, this has an ambitious epic fantasy plot with original themes about the line between science and magic, although this is undone by Rankin-Bass’s limited animation
Passable children’s fantasy film where the young deposed prince of a kingdom gains the aid of a magical creature that grows bigger each time it eats metal
The first film version of the story of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, one of the tales associated with the Arthurian legends. An obscure, little seen version starring singer Murray Head as Gawain
A disappointing tv mini-series adaptation of Terry Pratchett’s Discworld novel, which has been (largely) played as a straight adventure with the usual Pratchett comedy taking a backseat
The attempt to create another Lord of the Rings went astray with this adaptation of Philip Pulllman’s fantasy series, which cut many of the core elements of the books so as not to offend religious conservatives
The second of Ray Harryhausen’s Sinbad films, an Arabian Nights adventure. Made as a vehicle for Harryhausen’s stop-motion effects, which are stunning. Everything about the film is classic
Cannon Films adaptation of John Norman’s series of books. The books come with heavy BDSM content but this is a planetary adventure about a professor transported to become a hero on a barbarian planet
Takashi Miike jumps aboard the mid-00s fad for secondary world fantasy films, creating a realm of spirits where he and his makeup and creature effects team go absolutely wild
David Lowery has emerged as a director to watch in the last few years. Here he conducts a beautifully sparse and more ambiguous take on the legend of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
British-made sword and sorcery adventure in the early 80s fantasy cycle. This suffers from a cheap and impoverished budget that makes everything look tatty
Italian-made entry in the early 80s fantasy fad, a sometimes well made, sometimes sprawling Mediaeval saga about love between opposing sides of the conflict
Cult animated film that adapts several stories from the adult fantasy comic-book Metal Hurlant/Heavy Metal. These vary but in its better moments that has a trippy cult hallucinatory quality
After two bloated and over-padded Hobbit films, Peter Jackson finally gets it together and produces what everyone was expecting him to deliver, even if it means dragging one battle scene out to last an entire film
Peter Jackson returns to J.R.R. Tolkien and epic-sized adventure in the first of his Hobbit films. The visual sweep is there but the film feels over-extruded and over-burdened by its own self-importance.
Generally overlooked animated adaptation of the J.R.R. Tolkien book made for tv by Rankin-Bass. This keeps to the text very faithfully – more so than Peter Jackson – and is only let down by some limited animation
The Hobbit became Peter Jackson’s equivalent of the Star Wars prequels and this is the weakest work he has produced under the J.R.R. Tolkien banner. Five picaresque chapters of the book are extruded into bloated set-pieces
The first in a series of Terry Pratchett Discworld adaptations for tv. This makes the odd choice of adapting one of the more complex and darker of Pratchett’s usually comic books but it works fairly well overall
This Hayao Miyazaki film about a girl who becomes assistant to a mysterious magician is not quite in the same league as Princess Mononoke or Spirited Away but has the sublime beauty, eccentric characters and tender charms that all his work does
One of the better copies of Conan the Barbarian featuring Laurene Landon as a warrior woman. This is actually a better screen incarnation of Red Sonja than the subsequent film version
Sequel to Snow White and the Huntsman. Despite low expectations, this emerged better than one thought it would. It has a better director and seems much more at home being an epic fantasy than the first film
Paul W.S. Anderson adapts a George R.R. Martin fantasy story but somehow still manages to make it into another Resident Evil copy still starring Milla Jovovich
Uwe Boll strikes again! Sequel to his passable earlier epic fantasy, which is dragged down by a lack of action and the need to provide star Dolph Lundgren with a series of excrutiating witticims
A Uwe Boll film that feels as though he didn’t cared about what he was making. You’d have to go back to the Italian sword-and-sorcery films of the 1980s to find a more shoddy work of epic fantasy
Another of Uwe Boll’s videogame adaptations and one of his better. Boll is seeking to emulate the 00s epic fantasy fad and succeeds with some great action choreography from Ching Siu-Tung
A low-budget Italian sword-and-sorcery film, one of a host of such films that came out following the success of Conan the Barbarian. This was the third entry in the Ator series starring Miles O’Keeffe
A blatant attempt to copy Ray Harryhausen’s The 7th Voyage of Sinbad, night down to employing the same lead actors and director, but this fails through shoddy stop-motion animated effects
Another of The Asylum’s mockbusters intended to capitalise on the release of Jack the Giant Slayer. Despite setting out to adapt Jack and the Beanstalk, there are no giants in the film
Bryan Singer was once the hope of fanboy cinema but this attempt to turn Jack and the Beanstalk into an epic fantasy feels exactly like formula studio product that could have been made by any hired director
Stop-motion animator Ray Harruhausen takes on Greek Myth and creates one of his finest works. Harryhausen’s effects are at the absolute peak of their game and he delivers some astonishing creations
A Hallmark tv mini-series remake of the Greek myths that fails to stand up to the classic 1963 version. Here Ray Harryhausen’s amazing stop-motion animated effects are replaced by cut-price CGI
An unusual, visually fascinating fantasy film where a knight enters into the realm of demons to save a girl, while being granted a talisman that allows him to continually be killed and resurrected
The second part of Die Niebelungen, Fritz Lang’s silent film about the Germanic hero Siegfried in which Siegfried’s widow Kriemhild takes an epic revenge for the murder of her husband
A big-budget fantasy film made too much in the shadow of Star Wars by people with little understanding of the genre. The fantasy elements feel leaden and fail to take any imaginative flight
Disappointing adaptation of Robert E. Howard’s other barbarian hero. Cast with Kevin Sorbo, it comes out as Kull: The Legendary Journeys and the material is killed by the filmmakers taking an unserious approach
Live-action film adaptation of the popular animated tv series, this was widely seen as a disaster for M. Night Shyamalan. I am one of the few that liked the film for Shyamalan’s superbly designed world
A Chinese fantasy film that leaves anything Western fantastic cinema has made recently for dead, including epical battle scenes and a lavish sumptuousness of costuming that leaves your jaw on the floor
Renny Harlin, the director of a great many empty-headed action films, takes on the Greek myth and delivers a Hercules film that feels like it has been directed after too many watchings of 300
Earlier less well known adaptation of the C.S. Lewis book made for tv. This is faithful to the book but is badly hampered by primitive animation and an exceedingly simplistic rendering of the story
Way back before Peter Jackson, Ralph Bakshi made this not uninteresting animated adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien. The film was not a success and Bakshi failed to return to complete the second part of the story
Peter Jackson wowed the world with this first part of his adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien’s trilogy. This is epic filmmaking and one that shows Jackson in full command of his craft
The weakest of Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings films. This is the most variant from the source material and the one where Jackson allows his tendency to visual effects bloat to take over
Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings saga truly gains its feet here, expanding out onto an epic scale where he has fused special effects and story into a singular vision
A spinoff prequel to the Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings films that takes the option that several other film/videogame franchises have of Going Anime
One of the better films from B-budget dircetor Bert I. Gordon, a fantasy adventure where Gordon produces some decent effects
An epic Indian-made film based around the foundation text of Hinduism, concerning the saga of two warring and the intercession of the gods in these matters
A work of Arthurian sequelia made for the Syfy Channeal featuring Arthur’s daughter inheriting the sword. This has the feel more of a series of B-budgeted D&D wilderness encounters churned out without much effort rather than being a fantasy work that soars
A surprisingly good effort to emerge from the arena of fan-made Kickstarter funded filmmaking. Essentially, a group of fans have brought their mutual love of playing Dungeons and Dragons to life but the film, while low-budgeted, places a great deal of care into the characters and building of the world
Mythica: A Quest for Heroes was a fan-made epic fantasy film made with a high degree of creativity and professionalism; this sequel is slightly the lesser but still maintains the high degree of quality
The fifth of the surprisingly good Mythica fan-produced series that has consistently made a strong, rousing variant on the Epic Fantasy tropes on a low budget
This was the fourth in the surprisingly good Mythica series of low-budget epic fantasy films funded via Kickstarter. This proves to be the best of the series yet
The third of the surprisingly good Kickstarter financed Mythica films. This marks a changeover of directors in the series and is slightly the lesser but still does highly imaginative things with a low-budget
A popular fantasy film of the 80s that sits just between the imaginative, particularly when it comes to some its creature effects and design work, and the mawkish. It also comes with an intriguing level of meta-fiction that delivers some odd messages
Abysmal third entry in the series. The creatures lack any conviction and everything is wrecked by taking the story out of Fantasia back to Earth amid hip contemporary jokes