The Neverending Story
Directed by Wolfgang Peterson
Directed by Wolfgang Peterson
The director of Air Force One, In the Line of Fire, and The Perfect Storm got his start in English-language films with this incredibly odd and somewhat trippy children's film from the '80s.
I certainly remember watching this movie in 2nd or 3rd grade -- I don't know what those teachers were thinking showing this flick to us -- in this day and age, they'd never show this...that's what's wrong with kids these days -- they're forced to watch shit like Alvin and the Chipmunks instead of this. This movie has giant sphinx nipples, for Pete's sake! Giant sphinx nipples!
A young boy named Bastian is regularly getting beat up on his way to school. One day, he slips into a book store to evade his pursuers, and he steals a book titled "The Neverending Story." He takes the book to school and hides in the attic (because all schools have scary run-down attics in them) for the day and reads through the "epic" adventure story. In the tale, the land of Fantasia is being overrun by an evil known as "The Nothing" that is destroying the land. That's pretty much all I know because the rest of the story is a convoluted mess. I guess the gist of it is that the princess of the land is sick and dying. The king calls for a warrior to come and fight The Nothing which will end the princess's illness. The warrior that shows up is a young boy named Atreyu who is laughed at upon his arrival, but is the kingdom's only hope. Atreyu travels across Fantasia meeting funny creatures along the way.
Seriously, there's some really weird-ass stuff in this flick. Oddly enough, it's all really intriguing in a way. In fact, there are a few really interesting scenes -- one of which where Atreyu and his horse travel through the Swamps of Sorrow is surprisingly emotionally powerful. And, for some reason, the ending still is quite eerie to me.
There's no denying that there's some nostalgia creeping into my rating for this movie. I recognize that a kid watching this today wouldn't give a damn about this flick in the slightest -- the special effects (which, at the time, made this movie one of the most expensive ever made outside of the US) are laughable as is the silly synthesizer soundtrack...and let's not get started on the child actors. Still, I can't deny that I truly enjoyed watching this film again for the first time in probably 20 years...even if the enjoyment stemmed from the Mystery Science Theater 3000-esque "talking back to the screen" that occurred while I was watching it with my brother.
And it's not every day that you get to see giant sphinx nipples...
The RyMickey Rating: C+
BONUS: Here's the kick-ass music video of the awesome theme song!
This was only second to The Labyrinth in my childhood.
ReplyDeleteIt's pretty corny looking at it now, but I look at movies like this and then look at the junk that's being thrown at kids nowadays and I realize I was pretty lucky.
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