Voyage of the unicorn - 2001

I didn’t like it much, but I’m sure I would have had I been twelve or so, or had I seen it first time as a child. Seeing it for the first time as an adult, I didn’t like it, I couldn’t even watch it through my inner-child’s eyes, which works for other films but not for this one, it did nothing for me, I couldn’t get past the fact that Bridges always had a vague expression, that there was no soul... the girl were not bad though, and the best scene involves them when they remember their mother, that was really good.
Professor Alan Aisling (Beau Bridges) is supposed to be a believer, he teaches his class that “credendo vides”, meaning “by believing one sees” (and not the other way around). He says “could we possibly be more than what we see?” - a kid”what we see is what we get” - “if that’s true, how boring, how sad”. 
He has two daughters, Miranda (Heather McEwen) and younger Cassie (Chantal Conlin). He’s about to get fired, and at home is not easy now that his wife’s dead. The girls have trouble dealing with it and he’s barely present. At night, Skotos the troll shows up at the university looking for Aisling by name and goes to his home to get him, and there’s a fight where Skotos says “Aisling, the prophecy ends here”. 
Cassie is taken away by two others, sort of fairy-looking men, dwarf Malachi and elf Sebastian; Alan and Miranda see it all from a window and follow them. They reach a ship like the one in their mother’s drawings, and they all go aboard. Alan says “I can’t believe this” and Malachi “but sir, we are here precisely because you can believe”. They are transported to another place. Malachi is the captain, Sebastian has a crush on Miranda. They go to see king Oberon and queen Titania, who actually sent them to protect “him”... already it doesn’t make sense that they would only take Cassie and run...
The ship is “bigger on the inside”, like any cool ship should be :-p
It has rooms and rooms, a big library, armors, lots of clothes for Cassie to wear and only one for Miranda but it can change to whatever she likes at her will. 
The prophecy states that they must save that world or the trolls will keep coming for them. 
Cassie keeps saying that her mother drew about all that but they never listen to her (on Miranda’s part it looked like it was too painful for her, while Alan looked like someone who simply doesn’t listen).
Titania is all blue with vampire teeth, and she gives Cassie a necklace with a compass-pendant showing the way home, and to Alan she gives something that shows the truth, but she says to Miranda “such pain..” and then “you need not magic from me, how can I give someone gifts who already possesses so many of her own but does not use them... the time will come, that I promise”.
They must find a dragon that has disappeared. On an island, Cassie loses herself in a labyrinth, keeping running around, and she finds the minotaur; at first she runs away until she reaches a dead end. He stops, she has faith in miracles so she elegantly introduces herself and takes him by the hand. He always wanted to leave but he doesn’t know the way out. He traps and then eats whatever animals finds its way into the labyrinth and now they eat together until Cassie finally remembers that she has a compass and she guides him out (leaving the poor goat tied inside to starve, poor thing). The minotaur joins them to protect Cassie. They find a dragon’s skeleton and take the skull on the ship with them. Cassie sees a light in the skull. The troll’s ship approaches. Skotos says to leave the professor to him - “what about the others?” - “all work and no slaughter makes Jack a dull troll” ...
The unicorn ship has a cannon and they sink the troll ship. 
Only the family goes ashore to a temple-looking place in the ‘forbidden waters’. It’s Medusa’s place, and Alan blindfolds his daughters and then uses the gift given to him by Titania to see her as she truly is, not the deception: beautiful, so she lets them go but is sad because she’s all alone, so they say “come with us”; she wears a hood and joins them. A flying girl who is apparently the sphynx asks them the same old man-riddle but then she refuses to join them. 
Alan makes Medusa a pair of shades glasses so she can look around and he can look at her. 
The trolls board the ship this time and they fight - it’s a bad, boring, long battle scene. 
Skotos sees the dragon’s skull and takes it yelling “the power is mine”. A troll is still on the unicorn ship and Medusa wants to help Malachi but he turns around during the fight so he’s the one turned to stone by mistake. Only he knows how to pilot the ship so they have to save him. 
Titania has faith because the girls have pure hearts. We see Oberon working with the trolls to stop the Aislings. To help Malachi they need unicorn’s tears and a silver apple. They go to an ogre’s place where silver apples grow on trees and they start picking them up - they only needed one though :-/ are they ‘stealing’ them because they’re made of silver? :-/
The girls have different clothes now and when he sees them the ogre thinks they are princesses so he stops fighting. A unicorn approaches them, just like in mom’s pictures. It just ‘cries’ on Malachi and he’s back to normal - so what exactly was the apple for??
Titania’s place is all burned, and she’s worried because ‘the king is missing’ but she can offer no help, the prophecy is for them to fulfill. 
The unicorn joins them on the ship and plays chess with Miranda..
Oberon made a deal with the trolls, he’d stop the prophecy and they’d stop attacking his kingdom, but they’re not happy that the family was not destroyed and Skotos wants his kingdom for himself...
Skotos uses magic to send a sea-dragon after the unicorn-ship, and Miranda dances in front of the dragon, who knows why, and it works some kind of magic and it goes away. She’ll say that she called the mermaids for help... whatever that means, whatever happened.
They head now to the troll-island. They retrieve the skull, Cassie is taken prisoner so Alan and the minotaur go to rescue her, while Miranda brings the skull to the ship. Cassie tries talking to the trolls, to convince them to be good, but it doesn’t work.
Alan and the minotaur assault ALL the trolls head down to get to her, then the sphynx flies there and takes Cassie away. The minotaur stays to fight while Alan runs away to join his daughters. 
Miranda is still carrying the skull, who now looks bigger and heavier as it should be, but the trolls are after her. Cassie rides the unicorn to get back to them. Alan reaches Miranda and helps her.
Malachi, Sebastian, Medusa and Oberon are all slaves of the trolls, and the minotaur too, he’s not dead. Skotos cuts one of his horns, but he still won’t betray them, so Miranda shouts at them and runs, and then fight. She becomes a great warrior just like that.
Cassie takes the skull away, with Alan and Miranda in front of her to protect her. Alan tries to make a dead, the skull for his daughters safety, but Cassie believes and she raises the skull and it turns back into a live dragon, although an ugly one. The dragon defeats the trolls, and in the middle of the battle Miranda kisses Sebastian. 
They are all freed and Cassie now wants to go home. She wakes up in her bed, and now she eats because “there is no honour in starving”, as the minotaur said, and then she says she had the strangest dream, and they did too, and Cassie still has the necklace, so it was not a dream after all.
Alan is not fired, he’s the new dean now. Alan sees a girl like Medusa on campus (one like her or her somehow turned normal again? who knows), we see Miranda singing in front of people and Cassie is not sad anymore because “I have faith, and faith precedes miracles”, and it’s the end. Just like that. 
Not worth a rewatch, no. 

Who wrote IMDB’s first lines on this movie? The storyline is well written, but the first words are “the demon is coming are the boat in order to five headed dragon useful for help Alan Aisling, and he comes to way, what do they want to see?” ... 
Anyway, it looked pretty much like an 80s movie, not one made in 2001. 

The best scene was the one in Medusa’s lair, when she tries to get them to look at her, saying there would be no more pain, no more memories, and Miranda falls down crying desperately, remembering her mother, finally letting out all the pain inside her. That was a powerful scene.
The ending though was very abrupt and unsatisfying. What happened to the others? To that world?
Also, Miranda was supposed to have “so many gifts of her own” and all she did was dance once and fight the trolls, which was a big thing since she supposedly fought like a warrior but not very magical..
Alan didn’t really look like one who believes for real; the minotaur is sometimes shown as having an incredible strength and then when he fought someone, where was that strength? 
I don’t know, I think it lacked a lot of the magic it was supposed to have, and the ending was terrible.

ITA il viaggio dell'unicorno