Director: Jim Henson
Starring: Jennifer Connelly, David Bowie, Shari Weiser (voice)
Year made: 1986
Maze of misadventure
Whatever the reason, the Eighties has become a cool decade again. However, nothing can make the lunchbox-revealing grey jodpers David Bowie wears in Labyrinth anything other than a little disturbing. If you can ignore this and allow yourself to be lost in Jim Henson’s imagination then you will surely feel the nostalgic memories come flooding back.
Of course you have to wonder how a film where a camped up Bowie kidnaps a baby, then makes strange advances on a 16-year old girl would go down in the present climate. You might also spend time considering how he managed to retain any credibility after such a shoddy performance. But such thoughts are secondary to the enjoyment to be had in Henson’s wonderful characters and landscape.
Jennifer Connelly plays Sarah, who wishes the Goblin King would take her baby brother away. He does, and the only way she can get him back is by solving the riddle-infested Labyrinth, surviving perils like ‘the bog of eternal stench’ and taming David Bowie’s hairdo.
Even 18 years on there isn’t much that can top the style and character that the Henson workshop created in its puppets. The likes of Ludo, an orange Yeti-like creature, and Hoggle, Sarah’s begrudging guide, still look as realistic as they do fantastic.
As per usual, again we have a disc flagged up as a collector’s edition without offering much in the way of extras. Some contemporary retrospective featurettes would have made good additions but all the DVD has to speak of is a making-of documentary filmed at the time. This said the 56 minutes are of a high quality. All the main culprits are on hand to talk, from Henson himself, to Bowie, to Brian Froud to screenwriter Terry Jones.
What is particularly pleasing is the vast quantity of behind-the-scenes footage that will leave you with a qualified appreciation of the work that goes into puppeting each and every Muppet.
Weird and wonderful, everyone should lose themselves in this Labyrinth.
Film 4 stars
Extras 2 stars
Special features
• ‘Making Of The Labyrinth’ documentary (56 mins)
• Photo gallery
• Storyboards
• Filmographies
If you like this why not try...
The Dark Crystal (1992)
Jim Henson’s first foray into the dark side with lashing of mysticism and muppets: magic.
The review first appeared in DVD Review #63
Monday, March 9, 2009
DVD: Labyrinth
DVD: The Dark Crystal
Directors: Jim Henson, Frank Oz
Voice of: Stephen Garlick, Lisa Maxwell, Billie Whitelaw
Year made: 1982
A step into the dark
Do not underestimate the power of the dark side. In a foray away from all things bright and cheerful Jim Henson dipped his toes into some unfamiliar murky waters with this fantastical story of Gelflings, Skeksis and Mystics. It was 1982 and the film that spurned many a childhood memory was The Dark Crystal.
As the tagline truthfully declares this is ‘another world, another time… in the age of wonder.’ It is not so much the complexity of the tale that the master storyteller is telling, but the way in which he tells it; through another wonderful fantasy world transported from his imagination to celluloid.
A thousand years ago this world was split when the dark crystal was broken and a shard lost. Since then the evil Skeksis (think vultures) have ruled the land while their counterparts, the peaceful Mystics (sort of large Muppet gypsies) have just hung out waiting in their commune for a prophecy to be fulfilled: at the time of the great conjunction of the three suns a Gelfling (Jen) will make the crystal whole again and end the Skeksis’ reign.
The nostalgic value of The Dark Crystal is high but beware of your expectations: time and technology have not been kind to what was groundbreaking work at the time. It still looks great though, if you can get thoughts of Spider-Man flying through New York out of your head. This is not helped by the lack of effort that has gone into remastering the picture to a treatment one might rightly expect of a collector’s edition disc. There is another disappointment and that is the dropping of the DTS soundtrack that was provided on the Superbit version.
Appeasing some of your expectations is an excellent 60-minute featurette, ‘The World Of The Dark Crystal’, produced in 1982. It is a great document charting the evolution of Henson’s creation with contributions from the man himself offering numerous observations over the nature of his work on the project. The disc is rounded off with some stocking filler deleted scenes and a collection of image and text-based extras. A collector’s edition they do not make, but a valuable edition to your collection nonetheless.
A great film on a disappointing DVD.
Film 3 stars
Extras 3 stars
Special Features
• ‘The World Of The Dark Crystal’ documentary
(60 mins)
• Deleted scenes
• Original language work print scenes
• Character profiles
• Character illustrations
• ‘The Mithra Treatment’: Jim Henson’s original
treatment of the film
• Storyboards
• Filmographies
• Theatrical trailer
If you like this why not try…
Labyrinth (1986)
David Bowie sings, Jennifer Connelly gets lost and the Muppets… well, they act like Muppets.
The review first appeared in DVD Review #63
