Does a title like The Legend of Ochi guarantee the film will focus on fantasy elements? No, but when you add the character art seen in the thumbnail to the left, the likelihood the 2025 movie will delve into that genre nears 100 percent.

Teenaged Yuri (Helena Zengel) lives in a remote part of a Black Sea island with her father Maxim (Willem Dafoe) and older brother Petro (Finn Wolfhard). The locals live in fear of an indigenous animal species called “Ochi” and they actively hunt these allegedly vicious creatures.

However, Yuri comes upon an injured young Ochi and takes pity on it. This leads her on a journey to bring the baby home.

Born in 1983, filmmaker Isaiah Saxon would’ve experienced most of that decade’s cinematic culture via video or cable or VHS in the 1990s. Clearly the era rubbed off on him, as Legend delivers a heavy 1980s “family film” vibe.

One look at the baby Ochi on the Blu-ray cover to the left implies a design that mixes Gizmo from 1984’s Gremlins and Grogu from the Mandalorian TV series. Neither of those projects seems to act as inspiration for the story of Legend, however.

Instead, Legend come with a tone that reminds one heavily of 1982’s ET the Extra-Terrestrial. From start to finish, the vibe feels palpable.

We get another coming of age story about a young character who bonds with a mysterious creature and attempts to facilitate the critter’s return to its people. Yuri never calls anyone “penis breath” and the tale never uses candy as a plot point, but the similarities seem undeniable.

Not that Legend feels like a Mac and Me-style ripoff, of course. I can find plenty of differences between the two, so despite the similarities, Legend never blatantly emulates ET.

Still, those connections don’t feel coincidental. Even without the ET link – and the director claims he never saw the film until his late 20s - it seems clear Saxon wants to recreate the 1980s family fantasy fable tone.

And he does to a degree, but he tends to lose the natural charm of that era’s better genre flicks. While Legend evokes the mood and pacing of 1980s movies, it can feel mechanical and like a simulation.

In other words, I sense that Saxon concentrated so much on the tone and look of Legend that he neglected story and characters. Despite ample room to depict the tale’s society – with its intriguing mix of modern and old – these elements feel like windowdressing.

Yuri, her dad and the rest never develop well either. They feel loosely sketched and can’t evolve into compelling roles in their own right.

Even Baby Ochi comes across more like an adorable gimmick than a loveable critter. The best 1980s flicks like ET and Gremlins worked because we genuinely cared about their unusual creatures.

With Baby Ochi, we find it cute but not more than that. The film can’t make the little beast interesting beyond its adorable look.

I do like the puppet work that brings Baby Ochi and his tribe to life, and Saxon manages to create an evocative little society. Again, visually Legend works well.

But it winds up as much more style than substance. As an 80s kid, I wanted to love Legend but the end result just failed to ensnare me emotionally.

The Legend of Ochi appears in an aspect ratio of 1.66:1 on this Blu-ray Disc. For the most part, the film came with a pleasing image.

The movie could feel a bit soft at times, though most of these occasions seemed intentional to suit the nostalgic 1980s feel. Overall delineation remained solid, however.

I detected no issues with jagged edges or moiré effects, and edge haloes remained absent. No signs of source flaws emerged.

Legend opted for a palette heavy on teal and amber/orange. Uninventive as these choices seemed, the Blu-ray reproduced them as intended.

Blacks felt deep and dense, while low-light shots offered appealing clarity. Though not a dazzling visual spectacle, the movie looked fine.

Downconverted to Dolby TrueHD 7.1, the film’s Dolby Atmos soundtrack also seemed positive if not remarkable. This meant a soundscape largely focused on ambience and music, with occasional violent punctuation.

The latter stemmed from the story’s occasional action moments, but these didn’t pop up with great frequency. Nonetheless, the soundfield brought a good sense of environment and used the channels reasonably well.

Audio quality satisfied, with music that appeared full and lush. Speech came across as concise and distinctive.

Effects offered appealing impact, with clean elements and nice low-end. Nothing about the soundtrack stood out as truly impressive, but it seemed more than satisfactory.

A handful of extras appear, and we launch with an audio commentary from writer/director Isaiah Saxon. He offers a running, screen-specific look at story and characters, cast and performances, sets and locations, music, various effects, editing, production design and related domains.

The track falters occasionally because Saxon goes MIA a little too often. However, he brings a largely satisfying view of the movie as a whole, so he gives us a lot of good material here.

A featurette called The Ochi Quest spans 18 minutes, 22 seconds. It provides a “video essay” with narration from Saxon.

The filmmaker discusses the movie’s long path to the screen and its evolution along the way. Inevitably he repeats some remarks from the commentary but the visual elements add useful tidbits and Saxon turns this into a tight overview.

Entitled “Singing Bird”, a Deleted Scene occupies one minute, five seconds and shows a song sung by Emily Watson’s character. It seems superfluous.

Like apparently all A24 releases, this one comes with six Photo Cards that display behind the scenes stills on one side and Ochi notes on the other. They add to the package.

Although The Legend of Ochi works overtime to offer a charming fable in the style of 1980s family fantasy flicks, it doesn’t get there. While it becomes a painless and occasionally evocative experience, it lacks the heart it needs to live up to its goals. The Blu-ray brings largely positive picture and audio with a few bonus features. I wanted to like Legend more than I did.