The sets, makeup and photography in Ridley Scott's contribution to the fantasy cycle are awesome, but the dialogue and acting are more fitted to the pantomime stage. The story deals with the efforts of the Demon King - beg his pardon, the Lord of Darkness - to exterminate the last unicorns from the land, thus ensuring the sun never rises again. This situation soon resolves itself into a familiar trek-to-the-castle-of-doom situation, with principal boy Tom Cruise, personality submerged beneath a razzmatazz overkill of soft-focus and special effects, banking on the powers of reflective sunlight to destroy the might of evil. This being a faerie, rather than fairy tale, the scene is also littered with flat-chested maidens, midgets in pointed ears, blossom, birds and thistledown. Heroes and hobgoblins alike are saddled with a Palladium-speak script cluttered with such olde-worlde expressions as 'Let's face it brothers', although David Bennent, the boy from The Tin Drum, does do extremely well as the Puck figure who accompanies Cruise on his quest, as does Annabelle Lanyon as a close relative of Peter Pan's Tinker Bell. Those of a more practical nature will at least appreciate the tremendous final battle between Jack and the demon giant he has to kill.

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