The defence The Sentimental Softie
“Sincerity is not manipulation.”
The film risks embarrassment to make emotion communal, and that openness is harder than fashionable detachment.
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The Last Unicorn
Fantasy · Animation · Family · 1982
A unicorn learns from a riddle-speaking butterfly that she is supposedly the last of her kind, all the others having been herded away by the monstrous Red Bull. The unicorn sets out to discover the truth behind the butterfly's words. She is eventually joined on her quest by Schmendrick, a second-rate magician, and Molly Grue, a middle-aged woman who dreamed all her life of seeing a unicorn. Their journey leads them far from home, all the way to the castle of King Haggard.
Movie details
The Last Unicorn
“There's magic in believing!”
1982 Fantasy · Animation · Family 1h 33m
Critical arithmetic
The consensus, allegedly.
Scores change. Arguments endure.
IMDb
7.3 / 10
32.1K votes
Rotten Tomatoes
75 %
Tomatometer
Metacritic
70 / 100
Metascore
TMDB
7.3 / 10
Community rating
External scores via OMDb · CC BY-NC 4.0. Values normalized for display; availability varies by title.
A unicorn learns from a riddle-speaking butterfly that she is supposedly the last of her kind, all the others having been herded away by the monstrous Red Bull. The unicorn sets out to discover the truth behind the butterfly's words. She is eventually joined on her quest by Schmendrick, a second-rate magician, and Molly Grue, a middle-aged woman who dreamed all her life of seeing a unicorn. Their journey leads them far from home, all the way to the castle of King Haggard.
CriticWise case file
What this film says about your taste.
Not a recommendation score. A measure of how closely the film’s taste signals resemble yours.
The archetype split
Who fights over The Last Unicorn?
For the defence
The Sentimental Softie
“You came to feel something, and you will.”
Read their case For the prosecution
The Cool Ironist
“Feeling things is a little embarrassing.”
Read their objectionThe split comes from the same five-axis model used by the test, not audience ratings or review sentiment.
Taste neighbourhood
Nearby on the taste map.
TMDB supplies the candidates. CriticWise reorders them by craft, strangeness, prestige, emotion, and pace.
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Barbie Fairytopia: Magic of the Rainbow
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Thunder, an abandoned young cat seeking shelter from a storm, stumbles into the strangest house imaginable, owned by an old magician and inhabited by a dazzling array of automatons and gizmos. Not everyone welcomes the new addition to the troupe as Jack Rabbit and Maggie Mouse plot to evict Thunder. The situation gets worse when the magician lands in hospital and his scheming nephew sees his chance to cash in by selling the mansion. Our young hero is determined to earn his place and so he enlists the help of some wacky magician's assistants to protect his magical new home.
Cinderella III: A Twist in Time
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When Lady Tremaine steals the Fairy Godmother's wand and changes history, it's up to Cinderella to restore the timeline and reclaim her prince.
Animal Crackers
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A family must use a magical box of Animal Crackers to save a rundown circus from being taken over by their evil uncle Horatio P. Huntington.
Where it lives
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Streaming availability data supplied by JustWatch.
Names above the title
The people responsible.
Cast & crew
Directed by
Arthur Rankin, Jr. · Jules Bass
Written by
Peter S. Beagle
Mia Farrow
Unicorn / Amalthea (voice)
Alan Arkin
Schmendrick (voice)
Tammy Grimes
Molly Grue (voice)
Jeff Bridges
Prince Lir (voice)
Christopher Lee
King Haggard (voice)
Angela Lansbury
Mommy Fortuna (voice)
Robert Klein
The Butterfly (voice)
Court is in session
Put The Last Unicorn on trial.
Two incompatible taste archetypes. One film. Read the arguments, then issue a completely binding cultural ruling.
The prosecution The Cool Ironist
“The strings are showing.”
Every cue tells you exactly what to feel and when, leaving sentiment to do the work character should have done.