Reviews

I was thoroughly enjoying this film, with its talented and attractive two leads, the evocative setting, and a decently realistic premise.

Then came the final act.

What happens in the ending is both poorly written and a waste of a potentially fantastic film. In a story that felt so natural and real, the entire third act comes seemingly out of nowhere in effort to force the characters into a specific type of ending. An ending which, though I would have preferred otherwise, could have been achieved much more organically with story pieces already in place (the father) instead of driving an underdeveloped secondary character into an unjustifiable decision, and forcing a main character to passively accept their fate with no fight.

Awful. Truly awful.

I wanted to like this movie, I really did. It has an amazing cast of extremely talented actresses. And I adore Betty White; frankly, I'd watch Betty White read a textbook on algebra because I know she could do with class and humor.

It's a pity she was a part of this monstrous film.

This is a film that teaches young girls to NOT stand up to your bully. That it's okay to bully so long as when you're caught you claim to be sorry even if none of your recent actions indicate that you are. That everyone will forgive you completely and welcome you into the family of your victim simply because you claim to now be a better person.

Now don't get me wrong: this movie had potential. I even enjoyed the first half or so. The last half shows signs of studio tampering. No responsible screenwriter would have come up with what was presented. I can only assume that either this ending what shot after the fact, or the studio (Disney) tampered with the script just before shooting.

A pity, because with a tighter and more competent ending, this could have been a wonderful film.

I find myself agreeing and yet disagreeing with the other user reviews here. When I first saw the cartoon series, I had very mixed feelings about it. I was VERY impressed at how much energy the creators put into making everything feel as much like the first film as much as possible (voices for Falkor, Childlike Empress, Engywook, and Urgle all seemed especially right) as well as the design of the Ivory Tower and Falkor, and even down to simple things like the clothes that Bastian wears. The scriptwriters also were extremely good at writing the dialog to SOUND like the way things were said in the first film . . . however, they were catering to a specifically younger demographic, so the plots were, for the most part, horrifically juvinile.

That being said, I find that there are a few episodes that I very much enjoy. My favorite is, perhaps, "Perilin" because Grograman was my favorite character from the novel that has never shown up in any film. And the voice actor PERFECTLY captured how I would have expected him to sound. The Desert of Colors was disappointingly not so colorful, but all in all, I find myself watching that episode occasionally.

So if nothing else, make sure you see the episode "Perilin" for the closest adaption from the book.