“Legend” (1985)
It’s easy to forget that, for years before “The Lord of the Rings” movies came along to give the genre a good name, cornball fare like “Legend” defined the fantasy film. But as dated and often cheesy as Scott’s sole attempt at the genre can feel these days, the picture does get a few things right, especially on the soundtrack with a dreamy score by Tangerine Dream and a wonderfully romantic closing number by sharp dressed Roxy Music frontman Bryan Ferry. Elsewhere, your mileage on this one will definitely vary, based on your level of nostalgia, how swoonsome you find a youthful gold-clad Tom Cruise making doe eyes at ’80s hottie Mia Sara and your tolerance for camerawork so gauzy it’s a little like you’re watching the whole thing through a chiffon veil. It’s basically the filmic equivalent of new-age unicorn art, though with a surprising (or not so much considering the director’s other output) dark streak that threatens to make it all a bit sludgy where it’s clearly supposed to be elfin and fairylike and full of magick that you spell with a “k.” Even those predisposed by childhood memories to love “Legend” have to admit that it has not weathered the intervening years well. And considering how timeless Scott’s previous two films feel now and how otherworldly and outside-of-history this one should be, that’s all the more disappointing. [C+]
“Someone to Watch Over Me” (1987)
While few of his features to date have betrayed any real sense of Scott’s genesis as a filmmaker in the world of advertising, 1987’s “Someone to Watch Over Me” seems to zero in squarely on territory occupied by fellow commercial alum Adrian Lyne —that of the “erotic thriller.” Neither particualrly erotic nor hugely thrilling to the modern eye perhaps, the film, telling the tale of a cop (Tom Berenger) assigned to protect a murder witness (Mimi Rogers), yields some real pleasure in showing Scott treating upper class socialite Manhattan as just as otherworldly as the LA of “Blade Runner” (he even borrowed some of Vangelis‘ score). But as critics even noted at the time, Berenger and Mimi Rogers have little chemistry, and the working-class tough-guy falling for his high-class social superior storyline feels pretty rote and heavyhanded, especially considering the murder subplot is so tepid. Lorraine Bracco as Berenger’s brassy, down-to-earth wife is terrific, finding surprising truth in a smallish role despite the cliche script, but even she, and the lavish ’80s music video aesthetic can’t rid “Someone to Watch Over Me” of the feel of a movie you’ve seen a dozen times before and a dozen times since. It’s one of Scott’s rarer and less forgivable missteps: an unoriginal one. [C]
“Black Rain” (1989)
For a man responsible for more than a few bona fide classics, Scott was almost always only one or two pictures away from something far more anonymous after his unassailable early run. Occasionally, courtesy of “Someone to Watch Over Me” and this fluffy-haired Michael Douglas and floppy-haired Andy Garcia vehicle, he could even come across as a copycat journeyman (albeit a slick one), rather than the original auteur he proved himself elsewhere —sometimes the films he copied included his own. And so the design of “Black Rain” is full of the slatted blinds and lazy ceiling fans of “Blade Runner” with none of the actual noir texture, though Hans Zimmer’s percussion-heavy, guitar-wailing theme is pretty rad, to use the parlance of the time. The rest of the film is a serviceable B-movie about no-bullshit New York cops getting mixed up in a Japanese crime investigation before shit gets personal —at the time it felt like a throwback to the decade it was actually made in. Still, it’s definitely pacy (again powered along by Zimmer’s score), and only slightly cringey in its East-West politics, especially if you continually remind yourself “this was the ’80s.” Which, frankly, Douglas’ hair does a pretty good job of. [B-]
“Thelma & Louise” (1991)
Made two and half decades ago, it’s clear that “Thelma and Louise” did not radically remake the filmmaking landscape in its feminist image, as some contemporary commentators suggested it might. But to watch it again is to wonder (again) why the hell it didn’t: “Thelma and Louise” is an absolutely cracking movie: it’s beautifully shot, briskly paced (even at 129 minutes) and peerlessly acted by a dream cast, particularly Susan Sarandon and Geena Davis rustling up effortless chemistry as the titular duo. Callie Khouri‘s outstanding script has a lot to do with it, and the film’s eventual popularity was further fuelled by the “discovery” of smirking golden boy Brad Pitt in an iconic eye-candy role, but we can’t take away from Scott’s impassioned direction, which does a remarkable, near-unprecedented thing: it makes a female friendship not just warm, loving, mutually supportive and important, but makes it cool. Also featuring a lovely supporting turn from Harvey Keitel as the decent lawman tasked against his inclination with chasing down the outlaws, and building to one of the most fabulously happy/sad endings in ’90s Hollywood cinema, the fact that the film did not turn out to push the vanguard of a female-oriented movie revolution forward only enhances its uniqueness and value today. [A]