Fair warning: This will be a rough review. All I ask is that you at least read the last sentence before you start sending me hate mail.
The Neverending Story SUCKS. It’s the suckiest suck that ever sucked. There are just so many problems and unanswered questions that I don’t know where to begin. Let’s start off with Bastion’s dad, played by TV’s Gerald McRaney. Am I supposed to want to punch him? The boy’s mother JUST DIED and he’s being a total dick to him! Give the kid a break, Major Dad!
That creepy guy in the bookstore– what was up with him? I mean, I get that he wanted Bastion to take the book, but who was he? Did he have some other purpose? If so, what was it? And if not, if he was just hanging out until some downtrodden kid who was being chased by bullies who also likes to read happened to stop in without parental supervision . . . man, I don’t think I could handle that.
Why does the school have a big attic that’s so easy to break into? Bastion knew right where to look for the key to the attic, so is this his regular thing? Why would the attic of a school, which I have enough of a problem with anyway, have a big mattress in it? Why did nobody notice that Bastion never showed up to class?
Okay, on to The Neverending Story within The Neverending Story. We start out meeting a small group of characters who are introduced and treated like they will be major characters, then . . . nothing. The bat guy and the snail rider just disappear for the rest of the movie after being given fifteen minutes of introduction! We’re quickly escorted to the Department of Moving Things Along, where we find out about the Empress being sick or whatever and how the world going to die unless Atreyu goes on this big quest and blah blah blah.
We meet Atreyu (above, on his dog-dragon thing) who manages to get his horse killed on the way to the wise old sneezing turtle who serves no purpose whatsoever. Atreyu meets the dog-dragon thing and some green-screened in miniature people who bicker about magic. They, of course, disappear after Atreyu heads for the statues that shoot lasers out of their eyes (below, sponsored by Jugs magazine. You’re welcome, boys!), which you’d think would be an exciting scene, but not in The Neverending Story! No sir!
It’s clear that the producers were going for a Lord of the Rings type film with the big multi-stage quest and lessons to help Bastion with his feelings and such, but it just failed on every single level. For one thing, it’s lacking in any resolution. The big ending is that Bastion gives the oddly-lipped Empress a new name (which reminds me, what is the Empress’s new name? The Internet tells me that it’s “Moonchild” but I can’t for the life of me figure out why Bastion would name her that.), saving the world and becoming its god, in the process erasing everything that I just suffered through. Guh?!?
And then Bastion uses his newfound authority to hunt down and exact revenge on the bullies who were chasing him when he hid in creepy guy’s bookstore. I–
. . .
Y’know, I’d've totally dug this movie when I was ten.
