The Legend of 420

So this one starts okay... well, the opening scene presenting an alternate history of the significance of 4/20 was a bit strange. But after that: we've got an interesting topic, some decent interviews, and yeah I guess it's tolerable enough. Sure, it's unbalanced from the get go, and it's perfectly fine to do that to an extent within a documentary. But when it come things like driving under the influence of marijuana kind of being dismissed passively through a stand-up routine, where the comedian says driving drunk is worse, it feels somewhat irresponsible. Technically, that's right. But I'm sure not everyone can drive safely under the influence of cannabis, as there are sometimes problems caused in some users, like temporary paranoia and extreme coughing fits- both of which could make the act of driving dangerous.

Speaking of those comedians, they're a little inconsistent, but not an unwelcome addition overall. I didn't realise they were padding to get the film to feature length until the last twenty minutes, when the non stand-up padding started to get truly awful, but we'll get to that. Also, some of the interviewees are a little annoying, but the filmmakers may well have been aware of that, and perhaps that's a subjective thing and other viewers won't find themselves irritated.

But yeah, it falls apart in the final twenty minutes, when it basically turns into a series of poorly implemented advertisements for various businesses that involve marijuana. There was one about halfway through the documentary about a university that educated students on cannabis that didn't feel too out of place, being isolated from any other advertisement. Yet later, in that aforementioned final twenty minute stretch, advertisements keep getting shoved down the viewer's throats, one after the other: a pot restaurant, the Bud and Breakfast, the Strava Coffee Roasters, the vape with cannabis that even gets loving close-ups on a blank background, and then specific cannabis related vet products. These are advertisements! You show them back to back like this and it's even more obvious! It feels like an ad break, and undermines whatever decent stuff you had in the first two thirds or so of the movie.

Also, the movie's final skit was incredibly stupid: the monkey throws the bone in 2001: A Space Odyssey; none of the astronauts throw anything up into the air. That's a nitpick, I'll admit, but the last 20 minutes or so bugged me so much and made me angry, so I wanted to snap back. Just under an hour of okay (yet unremarkable) documentary filmmaking falling away to about 20 minutes of advertising is disgraceful, and the shamelessness of it isn't something I can tolerate.

Sure, they might be good products. They might help some people, and for the record, this anger isn't about whether they're harmful or not. It's about them being advertised one after the other in a documentary- you do too much pushing forth of certain products and it's going to feel more like a series of advertisements than a documentary, and a series of advertisements was not what I came to watch.

Avoid this. It's shady and dodgy and maybe 1.5 out of 5 stars is too generous in all honesty.

What an awful documentary. Not very factual, only showing one side: the positive effects of cannabis. It played on our emotions and seemed like a long commercial.

Legend may be a bit of a big word and you may expect much more of this than it actually delivers. But it's not about anything you may not already know if you just looked into the whole thing a bit. There are other documentaries which have shown that criminalizing Cannabis/Marijuana is not the right way to go about on the "war on drugs" end.

And while there are some voices that are being used as counterpoints, this mostly is giving us the answer that making pot legal is the only way to go. The whole thing is entertaining though ... and if like me, you never knew about "420", the intro into the movie is giving us a joke into the number thing and the title itself too. And you also have comedians going off on certain stereotypes ... sometimes painting pictures with other stereotypes. All in all this is good fun and decent enough

The filmmakers did a fantastic job at putting this doc together. It was effective at explaining the marijuana industry both on the recreational and political level. It even had some good comedy bits thrown in there as well. It's a must see documentary about marijuana and the recent changing laws, while being both funny and informative. It offers a number of serious arguments of why cannabis should be decriminalized, to a variety of subjects including growers, transporters and artists. It also shows different uses of cannabis in medicine and cooking, and it isn't just about a bunch of stereotypes of stoners. We learn that cannabis can be used to help veterans with PTSD and lots more. It's a awesome doc that shows how great the benefits are of cannabis, and I would definitely see this doc again as well as recommend it to others!

Subjective advertising. Under the cover of a controversial topic, it's actually a free ad for THC consumption. It's not fair. It's commercial. Purely commercial ... and a liar. Comedy for stupidity. Says there, 25,000 studies ... where? who? When? and that marijuana is made by God. How stupid. And the poisonous mushrooms of God are made. And the cobra or scorpion venom. rating 0 and 10 for the ad.