YMMV / Krull

• Awesome Music: The main theme and music during the scene where the group rides the Fire Mares to the Black Fortress. Really, what would you expect from James Horner?
• Cult Classic: Stands alongside The Beastmaster, Flash Gordon, Hawk the Slayer, and Big Trouble in Little China as example of cheesy '80s cinema.
• Funny Moments:
  • Ergo briefly turned into a goose and tries to chase off Colwyn.
  • While the heroes try to tame the Fire Mares, one of them tries to jump on one only to fall off.
• Fridge Horror: So, Colwyn and Lyssa's son is prophesied to rule the galaxy... but how is this to be achieved, exactly? Will he simply show up on planet after planet and have the natives instantly proclaim him as their ruler just because, or, rather more likely, will it be achieved through a galaxy-spanning campaign of bloody conquest?
• Ho Yay: Perhaps there's a little between Ergo and Rell. Certainly there's something about the way Rell looks at him upon that first encounter. Not to mention that when Rell stays behind to die, Ergo is the only one who shakes his hand, with a dejected "We had no time". No time for what?
• Moment of Awesome: The film has its moments.
  • The ride of the Fire Mares.
  • Ergo's tiger transformation.
    • A crowning moment made even better by the (admittedly) Anvilicious Aesop that comes with it: whenever Ergo tries to use his magic for selfish ends, or as a Forced Transformation to punish others, it immediately backfires on him. The only times it works as he wants are this moment, and when he provided Titch with a puppy for a while—in other words, when he was selfless.
  • The Beast having his "love is fleeting, power is eternal" maxim tossed back in his face when it's the Beast's minion who betrays him instead of Colwyn who cheats on Lyssa. It'd be one for Lyssa and Colwyn too, if her retort and his rejection of Vella's advances wasn't so blandly-acted.
  • Rell's Heroic Sacrifice. His people were cursed by the Beast to know how they will die; defying this fate only curses them to suffer a more horrific death. Rell accepts this and holds open the Black Fortress long enough for his friends to sneak inside, before the gate crushes him.
  • The huge, translucent spider was supposed to feature in an action sequence that was cut from the script. You can tell they really wanted to do something cool with it (it is a rather badass-looking stop-motion puppet), but unfortunately, it mostly just kind of hangs around and makes a slight nuisance of itself while the music keeps trying to sell its barely-existent danger as Ynyr visits the Widow of the Web:
    Mike Nelson: "Calm down, music."
• Narm Charm: A big reason a lot of this movie is So Bad, It's Good.
• Nightmare Fuel:
  • The Cyclops standing in the dark, where you only see his one eye. This freaked out Ergo enough to agree to join Colwyn and Ynyr.
  • When the Slayers are killed, they shriek, spark, their heads split open, and you can briefly see wet, dark red things slipping out of their skulls and burrowing into the earth...and it's never explained.
    • Up to eleven with the fake Emerald Seer's death.
• No Problem with Licensed Games: The coin-op arcade game was one of the best in the mid-80's. The Atari 2600 version is also pretty sweet, and one of the best licensed games for the system.
• Retroactive Recognition: Look! Liam Neeson! Robbie Coltrane!
• Special Effects Failure:
  • The Beast is shown with obvious camera tricks. According to the '80s All Over podcast this was due to the expensive animatronic proving unable to function as intended, forcing the filmmakers — including a director who simply didn't have fantasy experience — to work around it.
  • When the heroes are riding the Fire Mares, it couldn't be more obvious that they're in front of a green screen.
  • The illusionary wall hiding the Emerald Seer is a composite shot with a thick, obvious line between the two halves.
• Suspiciously Similar Song: Critic Drew McWeeny points out in the July 1983 episode of '80s All Over that the Signature Song from Coco, "Remember Me", is this to this movie's love theme. He chalks it up as "a horrible coincidence."
• Tear Jerker: The Heroic Sacrifice by the Widow of the Web. Her Back Story makes it sadder, as well as the Unrequited Love.
• The Woobie: Rell. His entire race, really. They asked for the power to see the future, and got it...but all they can see is their own deaths.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: Krull's Cult Classic status is in part due to the number of unique ideas the movie contains. The plot is about a Standard Fantasy Setting that gets invaded by a Galactic Conqueror flying a space-worthy Eldritch Location, with the Outside-Genre Foe starting off the movie by completely curb-stomping the sort of Enemy Mine alliance that fantasy stories often culminate in. It's perhaps most known for the Impossibly Cool Weapon in the Glaive, and has brief but evocative backstories in the cyclopes and the Widow of the Web, not to mention several imaginative set pieces. Unfortunately, many of these things are told rather than shown, underdeveloped, or not connected very well. For instance, outside of the castle in the opening scene, no evidence of civilization is ever shown, even in ruin, undermining the apocalypic situation the world is said to be in. Even the iconic Glaive goes unused until the climax only to be upstaged in the final battle by an 11th-Hour Superpower.

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