David Bowie Takes on Jim Henson.

(SPOILERS FOR THE MOVIE)

Oh, Labyrinth. When I looked at the possible films that we could review for this assignment, nothing jumped out at me more than this little feature. I went in figuring that it would be a dorky (but still pretty fun) 80's fantasy movie, and believe it or not, I was completely right. Besides, it had David Bowie in it -- how the heck could it NOT be awesome?

Anyway, the story is about an especially whiny teenage girl (Sarah, played by Jennifer Connelly) who wishes away her baby brother to the goblins. As it turns out, these kind of wishes do come true every once in a while. Realizing her mistake, she jumps into Bowie's little fantasy world to find her brother (and hopefully gets over her whiny emo like behavior while shes at it). All along the way she is taunted by Mr. Ziggy Stardust himself, who pretty much acts like you would expect him to in the film (and he never wastes a moment to pop in a show stopping number while hes at it). Anyway, her quest takes her through an increasingly crazy fantasy world, populated by the somehow familiar distant cousins of the Muppets. Anywasys, she goes through adventure and toail, picks up some wacky friends, gets her head about her, and finally faces down Jareth (Bowie) for the fate of her little brother. It's very touching.


The Labyrinth itself is very dreamlike. Nothing ever happens the way you would suspect, and there is plenty of crazy obstacles for Sarah and company to get past. Her colleagues include a cowardly dwarf (who Conelly finds near the entrance to the place, trying to keep down the epidemic faerie infestation), a gentle giant monster (who can't speak a word of any known language coherently), and a noble bridge guarding fox (who I wanted to see tossed right into the Bog of Eversmelling Bad. Never happened, though.) Her challenges are varied; she will have to get through tricky labyrinth guards, a shaft full of crazily grabbing hands, the aforementioned bog, spooky forests, meat grinding tunnel cleaners, and these weird imp guys that like to toss around their own heads while singing. She doesn't have time for this crap, though; Her true goal is Jareth's goblin castle, and if she doesn't rescue her baby brother in 13 hours she might have a bit of explaining to do back at home. (I SWEAR, he just happened to turn into a little goblin kid!)

It might sound ridiculous, but it's actually quite a fun movie. The denizens of the maze (thought up and designed by Jim Henson, who also directed the movie) are pretty interesting, and they all have their own distinct personalities (they even crack a joke or two). The labyrinth itself is pretty imaginative, and every area that our heroine goes through, again, has it's own personality and flair. The place and the characters are what really give this flick it's charm; without them, it would just be another boring fantasy quest with an annoying heroine and some awful 80's rock/dance/sing along numbers. Yep, even though the songs were written and performed by Bowie himself, the score itself is pretty freaking crappy. The songs all sound very 80's, and while the kids that this movie was targeted to won't mind much, I certainly did. All of the music, for instance, has that distinct 80's synthesizer sound which dates it immediately, and Bowie looks like a 80's rock star through and through (go figure).

One final little thing on Bowie; he plays his role of strange, semi creepy villain pretty well, although I was hoping that he would go a little more over the top then he actually did. (He song and dance numbers were pretty lame, though.) Although he was a pretty memorable villain, he didn't really save the whole ending sequence, which I thought was pretty cruddy. Just falling off of a platform after the heroine rejects you? At least Sarah could have pulled a 300 and kicked him off of the world while yelling something really cool. Yeah, that would have made this movie awesome.

But I guess I'm just rambling now. This isn't a movie for everyone, but those into campy, fun, sometimes over the top fantasy adventures will have a blast. For me at least, it was so weird (and sometimes just bad) enough to make it a worthwhile experience.