L'histoire sans fin II

So the original is a classic and people really love it (deservedly so) - but with almost everything that is succesful, you will get at least one sequel. And it should have stayed at one sequel to tell you the truth, but more about part 3 elsewhere. This one takes the story where we left off, but has different actors in the same roles - which makes sense because many years had passed but they wanted to still have kids in the main roles.

So while this does not hold up to the first one, this is a decent effort overall. As an adult you can see where this is going, but for some kids this may still work. So it is the audience that matters a bit when watching this. There are character traits and downfalls and the puppet work is exceptional again. There are worse movies out there for sure

The original is one of my all time favourite movies, beautifully designed, well acted and had the sense of wonder that enthralled me when I was a child. I saw Neverending Story 3 recently, and thought it was absolute garbage with next to no redeeming qualities. NeverEnding Story 2: The Next Chapter wasn't terrible, but I will admit I was disappointed.

The film does look spectacular, with lovely costumes and sets- the image of the silver boats on the river was a beautiful image. The music by Robert Folk was gorgeous, very lyrical and atmospheric. And I did think Xayide was a pretty good villainess and Clarissa Burt was superb playing her, and that Ken Morrison did a worthy job replacing Noah Hathaway as Atreyu. I do admit Hathaway was better, he was born to play the part. Falcor wasn't too bad either, if not as wise as he was in the original movie.

There are flaws however. The plot is disjointed, and there are a lot of unfocused moments in the screenplay. Also that big bird was really irritating. Not to mention some contradictions in comparison to the original, then again NeverEnding Story 3 had a lot more contradictions, and did do an even worse job than this film. Barrett Oliver as Bastian was great in the original, and I do appreciate that they made him older and wiser here, but I did think as the hero Jonathan Brandis was rather feeble, but he did try his best with superficial material.

Overall, disappointing, but it wasn't that bad. If anything I think it is average, so I will give it a 5/10. Bethany Cox

Good movie. The thing that bugged me the most was that they went through all the trouble to do a sequel to cover the other half of the book, and then left out HUGE rather important chunks and put other junk in. If it could be done right, I would love to see the book done as a mini-series covering EVERYTHING. For a sequel, I give it high marks. As the other half of a wonderful book, not so high.

I am a fan of The Neverending Story the book. This movie did not live up to my expectations at all (when I saw it again recently)

The movie covers part of the book's story, with Bastian meeting Xayide. Although part of it is followed closely, Nimbly did NOT work for Xayide, there was no Memory ball thing (AURYN made Bastian lose his memories on its own) and the end was a cheesy replacement for the Fountain of Life.

In the original story, there was much more substance.

And the thing that annoys me most: If Bastian met the Childlike Empress in the last movie, why did she appear to him in this one? If they had only researched the story better, they would have discovered that you can only meet the Empress ONCE. No matter how many times you meet her, she wil have no memory of you ever meeting her previously.

The Never Ending Story 2 did not seem to be as good as its predecessor, however this movie wasn't all that bad. Sure it would of been nice if it had ALL of the original actors from the first one in it and that could be a reason why this film didn't do as well. I bet we would of all enjoyed this movie much better if it did have the original actors in it. I am a big fan of the novel (greatest novel I have ever read) and that could be why I happen to like this movie. This is actually the last half of the book when Bastian visits "Fantastica" and meets Atreyu and all the others. However one downfall was this film seemed a bit distant to the original making it seem like they are two totally different stories when in fact they are one. It just didn't seem to capture all the magic of the book. But all in all this was a pretty good movie and it wouldn't hurt to get an idea of what the second half of the story is all about. But the first film is the greatest and will put its spell over your entire family!!!!!!! I give The Never Ending Story 2; 7.5/10.