Young Sarah is left home alone by her parents and she has to babysit her
little brother Toby. But the baby keeps crying and Sarah, while telling
him a story to make him sleep, inadvertently conjures from a fantasy
world the Goblin King who steals the child and brings him to his castle
in the middle of a labyrinth. Sarah has to rescue him before midnight,
or the baby will became a goblin...
Oh
dear, Jim Henson, you are sorely missed. Not necessarily because you
went before your time, or even in somewhat rotten circumstances. No, it
is because unlike the purveyors of so-called family entertainment these
days, your work was actually entertaining to the whole family. When I
was a lad, I used to think these films were childish and patronising. By
comparison to what is being aimed at the children of my cousins, it is
MENSA material, and I realise now that it was far more brilliant than I
had previously given it credit for. Indeed, compared to the "you're not
good if you don't have good feelings" rubbish that the likes of B'Harni
fill the heads of children with, Henson productions deserve a medal.
At
its heart, Labyrinth is a simple fable about how much we miss something
once it is gone. A young girl wishes that her annoying stepbrother
would disappear, only to find when he is gone that she misses him. Enter
the Goblin King, played with a great malice by David Bowie. The
challenge the Goblin King sets almost sounds like a video game. Indeed,
one popular Commodore 64 game of the time set the challenge of
collecting the pieces to solve a key puzzle to save the world in a
certain time period. Labyrinth was even adapted into a game for the
Commodore 64. In Labyrinth the film, this young woman named Sarah,
played with a certain kind of brilliance by a young Jennifer Connelly,
is challenged to navigate a massive labyrinth in less than thirteen
hours, lest her brother become one of the Goblins.
It sounds like
a very simple idea, and it is. What makes Labyrinth the
under-appreciated classic that it is is in the details. As previously
indicated, the leads are absolutely brilliant. While David Bowie chews
scenery like there is no tomorrow, Jennifer Connelly gets so into her
character that she makes it seem perfectly natural when she is
interacting with some of Jim Henson's most ludicrous creations. The
scene in which she rescues a giant yeti-like thing called Ludo is one of
the most superbly-made things in the history of children's film. It is
also worth noting that in contrast to the aforementioned normalism of
B'Harni and his ilk, Henson's creations taught the valuable lesson that
appearances are not the sum total of a living creature's character. Ludo
looks like he could tear apart our protagonist, but his manner and
speech show him as one of the most gentle and lovable characters ever
depicted in film.
As you might guess from this film featuring
David Bowie as the top-billed star, there are also a few song and dance
numbers. Some of them, such as the magic dance number, are immortally
embarrassing. Or at least, they would be, if not for two things. First,
the suspension of disbelief that Henson so admirably achieves with his
puppets is a real pleasure. Second, Bowie's golden voice could charm the
paint off walls. When he sings "I saw my baby, crying hard as babe
could cry", it stands out like a stark reminder of why this man used to
be able to sign record deals worth tens of millions of dollars. It may
even bring tears to your eyes.
If Labyrinth does have a weakness,
it is in the closing reels. The final song from Bowie stretches the
scene beyond its welcome, but it recovers nicely once Sarah returns to
the real world. The compositing work in the Firey sequence is rather
lousy, and the story seems to grind to a halt when they do their song
and dance number. On the other hand, their song and dance number is
still incredibly amusing to behold.
In all, I gave Labyrinth an
eight out of ten. It is not perfect. In fact, I wonder if whomever
designed Bowie's costume was not playing an elaborate joke upon him. But
for all of its problems, Labyrinth is an underrated classic. One of the
few films that is advertised as being for all ages, and can entertain
audiences of that description. A great light went out in our world when
Jim Henson passed away.
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