TV Movie Review: The Magical Legend of the Leprechauns (NBC)
© Elizabeth Burton
Oh, the Peter Barnes script starts off with all the leprechaun movie cliches. American Jack Woods (Dennis Quaid) is sent to Kerry, Ireland, to scout for locations for fancy vacation homes for the rich and famous. Wandering through the woods, he stumbles on his neighbor, beautiful Kathleen Fitzpatrick (Orla Brady), skinny-dipping. After some mutual misunderstanding, they fall in love, then fall out over another misunderstanding, and are, in the end, reunited to live happily ever after. Basic formula romance stuff.
Then you have the dotty old parish priest and Kathleen's hulking, boneheaded quartet of brothers and the inevitable poteen jokes. Last and least, there's the threadbare theme of modern corporate man finding epiphany and enlightenment in the beautiful, unspoiled countryside. (Yawn!)
Finally, there are the two young people from feuding families, leprechaun Mickey Muldoon (Daniel Betts) and fairy princess Jessica (Caroline Carver) who meet when he crashes her party and fall in love at first sight. Sound familiar?
What Barnes does is take these been-there-done-thats and add humor, irony and a lot of cliffhangers and turned the tale into something that's comfortably familiar and yet sufficiently unique to keep you watching.
Jack shares his cottage, you see, with the Muldoons: Seamus (Colm Meaney), the leader of the Kerry Leprechauns, and his wife, Mary. When their son, Mickey, crashes the "troopin' fairies'" Midsummer Ball with his friends and falls like a brick for the lovely Jessica, it sets the spark to the kindling that's been accumulating between the two clans for ages. When Jessica's cousin, Count Grogan, kills Mickey's friend Sean and then dies at Mickey's hand, the spark explodes into flame. War is declared, even though the Grand Banshee (Whoopi Goldberg) warns both sides they are sacrificing their immortality.
The conflict builds, and so do the side effects. The fairies are responsible for tending to Mother Nature, ensuring the seasons come in proper order, the flowers bloom on time, and that the weather remains reasonably balanced. Caught up in the hysteria of war, they abandon their duty and Mother Nature begins to die. If life as we know it is to continue, Mickey and Jessica must find a way to end the war, even if it means giving up their love and each other.
