RUMPELSTILTSKIN
It's like Leprechaun, but doesn't suck as hard
When you're in a witch's shop, and she tells you that the one item you want isn't for sale (despite there being a price tag on it), you know you're either being hooked in for something more expensive, or you're gonna get that item and you're gonna regret it because you're in a cheesy horror movie.
Yes, Rumpelstiltskin himself is imprisoned in a little jade sculpture in the 1400's at the beginning of the film, and said stone finds its way overto an LA witch's shop. A lonely, widowed housewife (whose policeman husband was killed by a carjacker brave enough to do his work twenty feet from a uniformed officer) wishes on the stone after she gets it, to have her husband back, and...well, guess what.
I love how the mom, right from the start, displays every bit of ruthlessness she can muster in the defense of her child. Not one bit of wussification manifests itself in her - she's not averse to sticking knives or broomsticks into 'skin's head, if that's what it takes. She's played by Kim Johnston Ulrich, and her performance is great, and she's pretty foxy too - looking like Shannen Doherty if Ms. D a) didn't have that freaky-ass "eye" thing going on, and b) wasn't burdened by the complete unfoxification that comes with being Shannen Doherty.
Max Grodenchik, who might be familiar to you as Rom on "Deep Space Nine", plays everybody's favorite gold-spinning baby-napper. Can't this guy get a job that doesn't require six hours of makeup? (he gets the best line in the movie: "Mothers, they're all the same. Gimme the goddamn baby, make another one.") 'skin is a Freddy Krueger-like villain who is one of the film's weaker elements. His performance mostly consists of cackling, tossing off one- liners, and making comments about his anachronisticness ("Thy armor is strange, knight! I must have your steed!" he says to some biker).
This movie's pretty funny and fast-paced for most of its running length, and has enough Terminator and Hitcher references with which to play spot-the-homage. It wears out in the last twenty minutes or so, however - the talk show host character (played by Tommy Blaze - nice fuckin' pseudonym, pal) was pretty funny for a while, but his charm wears off. And besides, he takes valuable screen time away from the mom.
Still, recommended for those who still think there was potential for a pretty fun movie to be made out of Leprechaun instead of the one that resulted.