Sing your way through the Labyrinth
Creativity is something the world of film desperately needs nowadays. Anyone can tell a narrative and spit out drama without blinking an eye. Hollywood has been missing this element for some time now. Thankfully, Sony Pictures has decided to re-release what could only be considered the imagination of a genius. Jim Henson’s Labyrinth makes it to blu-ray tomorrow (September 29th) and it’s a great reminder of how much fun your mind can be when you place it out for the world to see.
Labyrinth is a story about a girl named Sarah (Jennifer Connelly) who detests watching her little brother, Toby, and wishes him away to the goblin king Jareth (David Bowie). Not thinking of her petty wish, Jareth actually sends his minions to steal away Toby, which they succeed in doing. Shocked and panicking, Sarah goes after the villains and meets Jareth demanding the return of Toby. Jareth tells her that if she makes it through his Labyrinth and into his castle then she can have Toby back and go home. The problem is that Sarah is about to go through one of the more complicated mazes she has ever encountered and she has to determine what is real and not real; easier said than done.
Labyrinth can only described as a deeper, more twisted version of Alice in Wonderland. It doesn’t have the drug trips to go along with them, but what it lacks in oddity, it makes up personality. The idea of the Labyrinth stretches far back in story telling with the Greeks. The Labyrinth is an unsolvable maze that traps its challenger and pretty much kills their hope for conclusion and fuels their flight towards insanity. Henson’s movie took that idea, toned it down a bit and made it more of an adventure. Connelly’s Sarah truly is trapped and must use her hits to figure out the path to Toby. She’s restricted by time, which only creates more tension and pursued by villains who hope to disrupt her plight towards an ending. Henson creates a world like no other and uses every possible outcome to confuse the audience and hook them with solution. In other words, he has made this kid friendly film into an adult mystery, which helps to put the entire audience on the same playing field. Feel free to credit Terry Jones (Monty Python anyone?) Dennis Lee and Jim Henson for the structure.
That is the great part of Labyrinth; young or old you’re still enjoying the trip.
Now for the not so great part of the film. The acting, outside of the puppets, was underwhelming. A very young Jennifer Connelly certainly wasn’t at the top of her game when she got involved with this film. Compared to actors today, heck compared to Connelly today, she simply sounds hokey. My kids bought her dialogue and got sucked into it, but it just sounded terrible to me. While the overall storyline certainly didn’t survive the years, the bulk of the story did. Shifting slightly to the otherside of the acting coin, David Bowie simply gave me the chills. Crossed between a hard rock singer with big hair and someone else who joined Connelly with hokey lines, Bowie was hard to fear. Granted his comedy worked devilishly well when it was called for (when he abuses his muppets it’s actually quite amusing).
Speaking of muppets, Henson’s group by the time this movie hit the theaters, had perfected the art of puppeteering and taken it to a new level. Some costumed fully, some not, the muppets stole the show when it came to characters and development. Kids and adults alike will be entertained by them and care for them by the end of the film. They actually made the world and the story work much better when you get down to it. For example, Hoggle the lovable well…. whatever he is, was brutish, alive and caring. I connected better with him (or her) then I did with Sarah’s character. That was how the movie was, the muppets brought the goods and provided solid story for an otherwise hokey dialogue driven film.
As for what blu-ray did to this film after nearly 25 years, it helped it age better. While it wasn’t the brightest blu-ray on the block, the quality of footage benefited from the HD upgrade. There is some graininess here and there, more so in the darker scenes, but it’s better than DVD. Granted the movie was a quarter of a century old, but older movies have been done better than this. The Last Starfighter and Snow White ended up sharper than this film. I hope to get you a full explanation of the blu-ray conversion process in early 2010 (doing a Q/A with the Sony folks), but until then the difference in quality is a bit of a mystery; I just know there is one. As for audio, you get all the wonderful Bowie songs and masterfully crafter 80s soundtrack from Trevor Jones in wonderful TrueHD 5.1. If your’e in love with the 80s then you’ll be in love with the audio.
The features are definitely something to write home about. Here’s what you’re getting with Labyrinth:
· “The Storytellers” – Picture-in-Picture Exclusive
· Making of Documentary: Inside The Labyrinth
· Commentary with Brian Froud
· Journey through the Labyrinth: Kingdom of Characters
· Journey through the Labyrinth: “The Quest for Goblin City”
The Storytellers feature is quite good and worth the price of this movie. If you love the movie already you’ll love it even more.