The Last Unicorn (1982)

As popular as unicorns are, it's strange that there aren't more movies about them. This is probably the most famous unicorn movie. I love unicorns! I'm probably expressing some bias when liking this movie simply because of how much I love them. This is still quite a solid film with good writing. I love how during the middle of the film, they do this completely different thing.They turn the unicorn into a human! As a human, a prince falls in love with her, but it's complicated because she's well, a unicorn. It seems as though she's actually going to stay as a human at the end of the movie, but ends up going back to being a unicorn. The prince didn't get the girl he wanted, but I really felt what they did was unique and mature. The unicorn is beautifully drawn and such a likeable character. ***

This film is very special to me. I was given a copy on VHS when I was 6 (around 1987) and I loved it ever since. It was my introduction to medieval fantasy, my introduction to Christopher Lee, my introduction to so many things and the feeling of the film has stayed with me always. I keep it close in my heart. The music in the film is so delicate and beautiful, and the songs by America are stunning. Christopher Lee is perfect. The style of animation is beautiful, otherworldly. Unlike many children's animation films the story is quite dark in places and even perhaps quite adult in some of it's themes. I can't say as a child I would have understood it as such but the FEEL of the film made such an enormous impact on my young brain and I grew to understand it over the years. Even now, new layers reveal themselves to me within it. Magical, sad, with a strong theme about belonging.

This is an animated feature film adapted by Peter S. Beagle from his own novel. There will be spoilers ahead:This animated film is a fairly good adaptation of Peter S. Beagle's novel, which in no small part is due to Beagle's doing the screenplay himself. He did an excellent job. The animation and character design are surprisingly good, given that it's Rankin and Bass (I'm not a huge fan of Rankin and Bass). The song score doesn't really work for me as part of the film, even though it's good enough.The voice cast is uniformly good to excellent. Standouts include Mia Farrow as the unicorn/Lady Amalthea, Alan Arkin as Schmendrick, Christopher Lee as Haggard, Robert Klein as the Butterfly and Don Messick in a nice turn as a cat. Rene Auberjonois is good as a skeleton, as are Jeff Bridges as Prince Lir and Tammy Grimes as Molly.The plot is that there is a unicorn who is told by a strange Butterfly that she is the last unicorn and the others were captured by the "Red Bull". She decides to leave her forest to find out if she is the last unicorn, but is caught by Momma Fortuna (voiced by Angela Lansbury) and caged in her circus of fantastic creatures. She's befriended by Schmendrick, who frees her and she frees the other animals There's a beautiful sequence with a harpy trying to kill the unicorn in here.Schmendrick joins the unicorn and they are later joined by Molly. Schmendrick uses a magic spell to save the unicorn from the "Red Bull" (the animated sequences involving the bull are great). The unicorn turns into a human woman and she becomes the Lady Amalthea. The three of them come to Haggard's keep and become part of his household.Prince Lir falls in love with Lady Amalthea, who begins to feel the same way towards him. Schmendrick solves a riddle and finds out how to get past the "Red Bull". Lady Amalthea, Schmendrick, Lir and Molly travel into the "Red Bull's" area, where the quest is fulfilled, various plot lines are concluded and I won't spoil any of that here in case you haven't seen the film.Shout Factory just released a Blu-Ray/DVD combo, "The Enchanted Edition" and it's excellent. It and the film are well worth checking out. Recommended.

In 1982 I was 10 and saw this movie when it first came out and I still recall how enchanting this film is. It's a beautifully mesmerizing animation and story. I love unicorns - and I think this movie is one of the reasons I still love the magical mythological creature. This is one of those films that is great for watching with your kids.If you enjoyed this movie then I would recommend to you the following films that are sorta similar to this film and you may enjoy: "The Secret of NIMH", "The Black Cauldron" and "The Hobbit (TV Movie 1977)".They do not make films like these anymore. These old classic drama animations are some of the best you will ever see.9/10