Every time time I re-watch The Last Unicorn, I like it even more than I did before. For a number of reasons this film may not deserve the extravagant rating I gave it. But, disregarding its flaws, I really do think there is a lot going for it other than fantasy and pretty unicorns.

It's one of the more thoughtful animated films I have seen in a long while. Reality often interrupts fantasy and we are not left with the usual fairy tale that we are expecting. Yes that's right; this isn't the happy-go-lucky type of animated film that you've grown accustomed to over the years. It feels real, complex, and at times, a little bit sad and gloomy, but a bittersweet joy underlines it. The characters help emphasize the the stories complexities by being very complex themselves. Each character is interlaced with good and bad traits. This, together with the story makes for very unique and remarkable moments that borderline on a honest human feel. The dialog is amazingly beautiful. It doesn't feel campy or maudlin, like a lot of films I know of that go overboard with olden speak. It flows and feels almost poetic at times. And all that is what makes this film more worth-watching than some of the other fantasy films out there. But, of course, like I said before, The Last Unicorn has its problems.

The animation gives a nice feel. It's all very surreal and atmospheric, especially in the backgrounds. Though even for all that, the animation does fall short at times. Sometimes it's a little too stiff and fails to bring a scene completely alive. This doesn't apply to the animating of the unicorns of course, because the artists did a marvelous job at animating them with a graceful and magical look, nor does it apply to the films tranquil parts. It more applies to the high tension and action scenes. At times when the characters are talking with lots of energy, their expressions are awfully wooden. And when there is a fight, like the one near the end with King Haggard, the animation looks slow and a little clunky. Now the Red Bull(no, not the drink) could be another exception. He moves with lots of intensity and power, but this still doesn't make up fully for the other parts.

As for narrative, the pacing moves well for the most part, but at times it gets a bit too fast and sometimes the points aren't accentuated enough before they move on to the next scene.

The casting isn't at all necessarily a problem. Almost all the talents did a good job and were casted well. Alan Arkin and Tammy Grimes did a wonderful job with Schmendrick the Magician and Molly Grule. Angela Lansbury has a wonderful voice for the egoistic Mommy Fortuna, and Christopher Lee most of all, does a incredible job at bringing the neurotic King Haggard to life. It's a great casting job, but there is one exception for the voice of Prince Lir. Not exactly terrible, but he speaks in boring monotone for pretty much the whole film. I was extremely surprised to find out that the voice was done by Jeff "The Dude" Bridges.

The songs, on a whole, are good. Some I like very much. Some I think could've been left out. Three of the songs are sung by the folk rock band, America. One of them, "The Last Unicorn" is the opening song and is my personal favorite from the film. The others, "Man's Road", and "In the Sea" are mostly forgettable. The movie would have been much better off without them, especially "Man's Road" and its reprise that pops up in the middle of the film. Instead, a wonderful score would have been much more effective and more pleasant for this viewer. Mixed with the songs that are being sung off-screen are two other songs that are sung by a couple of the characters themselves, "Now That I'm A Woman" and "That's All I've Got To Say". I personally don't have any problems with either of them and I find them both to be very good songs, but they would have been better off if professional singers had done them more justice. Mia Farrow did a good job voicing her character, but I think she should have stepped back and let a professional take care of the singing part. Prince Lir's singing voice is about the same as his speaking voice. Dull.

Well, it certainly has imperfections, but for all of its problems, in my opinion, its charm and intricacies makes up for all that and then some. I'm having a hard time rating this. I was really surprised by how much I liked it the second time around. And when I watched it again, I liked it even more. I find it to be a beautiful, if not a bit flawed, film. If I watch it again, who knows...I might just like it even more. But for now, I will have to evaluate it for its blemishes and its beauty.

I never would have seen this film had it not been for YouTube. I was told a little bit about this movie from a friend and she said it wasn't all that great. Eh, she was right. The movie was ok, it kept me entertained for the most part, so I'll give it a star just because I didn't get bored with it.

The story was ok, followed the last unicorn on her quest to find more of her own kind. On the way she meets a bumbling wizard and a middle aged woman who join her on her journey. The characters were so so. The unicorn and wizard were the only two I really liked. There was this giant, annoying, singing butterfly near the beginning of the film that tells the unicorn where she must go, and the whole time he was fluttering about her horn I was hoping she'd stab him. Why couldn't he just have told her instead of going off into ten or so short random songs?
The Red Bull was kind of cool, he didn't really show up much in the film though. There was also a very odd looking pirate cat. He had a peg leg and wore an eye patch.
Some parts of this movie made me go "Oh my gosh...". For instance, when all of a sudden the wizard accidentally makes a tree that he's tied to come to life and his head is being crushed between two massive woody breasts. I was not expecting that at all; it's amazing what some of these older animated films had in them.

The music is mediocre. I didn't really like any of the songs, the singers weren't that great. The score was pretty flat and none of the themes stood out to me...if there actually were any themes.

The animation...is bad. It's painfully obvious even with a lower quality version on a small screen. The characters, save for the unicorn, are ugly. I know some where meant to be ugly but some that weren't supposed to be were. As for the animation, lots of shortcuts were taken, blatantly reused segments of animation, only the mouths move in some shots. Some of the creatures don't move realistically at all, mostly the horses in the movie, which is kind of sad considering the movie is about a unicorn.

Overall it was ok for one viewing, find it on YouTube or borrow it from a friend, but I wouldn't recommend buying it. Oh and just as a side note, the G rating I think should have been PG. This isn't a movie for very young kids.

In 1982, my parents took me to a the theatre where I would be terrified by a huge fiery beast. This red bull does not, as you might expect, give you wings, but rather chases unicorns into oblivion. The Last Unicorn was based on a novel by Peter Beagle, who also assisted in the screenplay adaptation. America came out of the desert on their nameless horse just in time to contribute several songs to the film's soundtrack including the theme. This was a Rankin/Bass production, the team that also gave us the stop-motion Christmas Special Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer, the animated The Hobbit , and the TV series Thundercats (Hooooooooooo!). While the film scored an unimpressive $6.5 million box office take, it has found a loyal following and greater appreciation since its release on video.

The film opens with the strangely attractive and titular "Last Unicorn" coming to the realization, that she is the last of her kind. This information comes through the ramblings of a crazy singing butterfly. I guess, that was good enough for the Unicorn, because she sets off on a quest to find the red bull and her kind. Along the way, she is captured by carneys including Murder She Wrote's Angela Lansbury. The bumbling wizard Schmendrick helps her escape. The duo becomes a trio when Miss Molly Grue joins the quest. The group heads for King Haggard's castle, the home of the red bull. But along the way, the bull appears and nearly kills the Unicorn. Schmendrick, in a desperate attempt to save the unicorn transforms her into the enchanting woman Amalthea. Since the bull only seems to hate unicorns, he leaves the three alone. The trio join the King's court, and continue to search for the rest of the unicorn folk.

As a human, the hornless unic Amalthea not only loses her taste for sugar cubes, but starts to forget her life as a unicorn, and begins to fall in love with Prince Lir (who has always loved horseback riding). King Haggard (voiced by Saruman) remains suspicious of the three, and has a hunch that Amalthea is no mere human. The trio are aided by a peglegged pirate-talking pussycat with an eyepatch and a funny skeleton (aka Odo), who help them to find the bull's lair and the unicorns. I won't spoil the end, but I will say that not everyone gets a happily ever after. Amalthea must either stay human "walking man's roads" and in love, or give up love and return to a state of immortality as a unicorn with her own kind.

Though the animation in The Last Unicorn is family friendly, the themes of the film are thought provoking and profound. Unfortunately, some of the character designs are a bit on the goofy side (big nosed Schmendrick and wrinkled face Haggard), undermining the more serious tone of the film. The music is also a great fit for the film and the time in which the movie was made. There are a couple of other songs in the movie that do not hold up as well as America's, but they aren't that bad either. Along with some of the strange characters I mentioned above (butterfly and cat), there are a couple of other odd moments including a seduction by a busty oak. But these elements add to the film's charm. Nevertheless, this film triumphs over other 1980's stabs at dark edged swords and sandals adaptations such as The Black Cauldron and the live action film Legend. On the other hand, I have to be careful. A dude shouldn't be to generous with his ravings about unicorn movies. I thinks it's safe to give Amalthea and company a solid B.

I really wanted to like this movie, and after reading the four star reviews here I had to rent it to see what the fuss was about. Sad to say, for the most part I'm still wondering. Without wishing to upset anyone, I've come to to the conclusion that... well, see the bottom of my review.

On the plus side, it's different, more multi-layered than most kids cartoons, atmospheric and has deeper meanings with no easy answers, rather than moralistic dogma. And some (operative word being 'some') of the characterisations are endearing and memorable.

On the negative side, the characterisations which aren't memorable range from ordinary to awful. The animation is lousy. This is an important point. When animation students tell me this film has great animation, I really have to wonder whether we're even looking for the same things. To me, the movement of the characters, particularly in the action sequences, clearly betrayed the fact that they weren't using enough drawings/frames per second. People run in slow motion, almost like in a dream.

Quite honestly, I thought the production values just weren't up to cinema release quality, even for 1982. It looked like it belonged on TV.

The narrative had problems, too. Often it moved from scene to scene without stressing the importance of a particular event. Particularly for kids, I imagine this would be a problem. I imagine it stems from having the author write the screenplay. Inexperience.

I certainly didn't dislike the film I suspect it will grow on me as time goes by and settles into my memory, but right now, for all its charm, quirkiness, trees with huge breasts ("My God, I'm engaged to a Douglas Fir" is definately my favourite line) and its understated appeal, I found that it fell too short of the mark in nearly all professional areas. Poor animation, mostly lousy songs (including at least one singer who could hardly hold a tune), spotty voice work, a script with little dramatic tension... I want to like this movie more, but I can only give it two and a half, and say its heart was in the right place.

...ok, to continue my introduction: I've come to the conclusion that this is just not a guy film, and it's not a film that makes the transition from childhood favourite to adult classic ver well. Go to IMdb and check out the discrepency in average votes between male and female voters. With most movies the voting is close. On this one it was overwhelmingly clear that guys just didn't get it, and as they got older, neither did many women.

This is the best piece of animation ever! The voices were good, and the characters what I expected them to be and the animation was beatiful! Classic movie!

The Last Unicorn takes a deep and wonderful and symbolic fantasy novel and flattens it into something kids can watch.

Not that I think that's entirely a bad thing. When I've read a book, though, I tend to judge the film by it. The Last Unicorn sticks well to the plot and characters. Schmendrick, Molly and the Unicorn are all as I imagined them from the book descriptions. The important parts of the plot and dialog are there.

And yet, so much is missing. The cursed people of Hagsgate, for example. The spider at Mommy Fortuna's Midnight Carnival. The discussions of mortality and immortality.

Judged entirely on its own, I feel that a few of the characters are too cartoony to fit into the style of the film (the eye-patch wearing, peg-legged cat, for instance.) And the Prince delivers his lines in a dead monotone.

Apart from that--well worth seeing. This is a Rankin Bass film, made after their highly successful TV movie The Hobbit, and drawn in much the same style. Animation is a bit stiff for a feature film, but the beautiful and detailed character design makes up for much of it. Christopher Lee does the voice of king Haggard wonderfully, the Red Bull moves with incredible weight and power, the unicorn is stunningly beautiful.

See the film! (But read the book!)

The plot, like the illustrating images, is very surreal. I use to rent this movie all the time when I was a kid. I was enthralled by the images but I didn't fully understand the plot. Watching it later, as a "adult", I became aware that the story is quite well-written and enjoyable in its own right. There are places where the dialogue flows more like poetry and there's nice voice work from the entire cast.

Beautiful animation. Style, form and colour are blended together to create a world where the images are as magical as the plot itself. The unicorn is a wonder to watch as she is recognizably horse-like, but at the same time drawn so gracefully that her form suggests the awe-inspiring wonder that unicorns are suppose to possess.