Die unendliche Geschichte III: Rettung aus Phantasien

In the beginning, there was The Neverending Story. It is the best film ever made.

Then, there was The Neverending Story II. I'll vent my spleen over that mess later.

And then, there came this waste of film and effort. Hold on a minute while I go throw up.

While it is a clean, safe film in terms of subject matter, the third NES should never have been made. And I mean NEVER. The first two movies covered all the wondrous things within the original book, so I don't understand why this film was made at all. It is just cheesy, stupid, abysmal, and an absolute disgrace to the idea of The Neverending Story.

First of all, what's going on with this stepsister of Bastian's that has somehow appeared? Wrong, wrong. . . Then, what happened to good old Falkor? And most of all, where is Atreyu? If you are bold enough to see this film, that is the one thing you will distinctly notice if you've seen the other two- no Atreyu.The boy who played Bastian was not nearly as obnoxious as the actor from the second film, but he just doesn't hold a candle to the original actor, Barret Oliver.

I have only seen this movie once, because I was informed of how awful it was, and just had to see for myself. It was a waste of my precious time. I hardly remember the plot line or anything important like that because it just didn't stick with me. One gets the impression that this was made as a sort of kid/family-friendly approach to The Neverending Story, because it is just so simplistic, and sacrifices the charm of the original characters and settings for the sake of being funny and entertaining. But trust me, it is NOT funny and it is NOT entertaining. Any NES fan worth their salt would be appalled by this film. If however you are not familiar with the Neverending Story, see the original 1984 movie and read the book and be contented with that.

Do not subject yourself to the torturous nightmare that is the Neverending Story 3, I implore you.

As for a star rating out of ten, I give this film nothing. Nil. Zip. Nichts.

When this film showed up on the cable listing, I had a sudden urge to see it even though I knew it was probably going to be terrible. The original was such a staple of my childhood, yet had such an incomplete ending, that I was intensely curious to see what they would do with another sequel. Besides, I knew that it could not possibly be worse than "The NeverEnding Story II."

Boy, was I wrong.

"The NeverEnding Story III" has rightly earned its place among IMDb voters as the 79th worst movie of all time. It is so bad that, in writing this review, I risk making it sound like it's worth watching, sort of like "Plan Nine from Outer Space." I assure you, this film is in no way in the Ed Wood category of being so incompetently done that it becomes enjoyable to watch. Those moviegoers who take pleasure in seeing cinematic disasters should be forewarned about this one, lest they never again be able to erase from their memory Rockbiter's gravelly-voiced version of "Born to be Wild," played in a video sequence early in the film and again during the end credits.

No, I am not joking.

The second film does have its admirers, and as much as I hated it, I sort of understand where they're coming from. At least that film had a legitimate purpose, to tell the second half of the novel which the first film had neglected to do. But now the story is finished, so the third film has to make up its own reason for being, with an even shabbier budget than that of the second film. So it concocts a story that allows us to see as little of Fantasia as possible. Here, a series of magical mishaps causes a bunch of creatures from Fantasia to be transported into the real world. These include Falkor the luck dragon, a baby rockbiter about the size of a fountain statue, and a talking tree. (Falkor, who must have gotten a lobotomy sometime between the second and third film, will chase after a "dragon" at a Chinese festival.) What we do see of Fantasia makes the place seem a lot smaller than I had ever imagined. Almost all of the scenes there take place in the empress's chamber in the Ivory Tower, though there is also one sequence where we get to see Rockbiter's home (just what I've always wanted to do!) with Mama Rockbiter and of course the previously mentioned Baby Rockbiter sitting in front of a large stone TV set. Needless to say, the inhabitants of Fantasia seem to possess quite a bit more knowledge of Earth than they did in the first film. When the gnome describes Bastian as "not exactly Arnold Schwarzenegger in the muscle department," we're reminded how much more enjoyable the film would probably be if Schwarzenegger were actually in it.

The cause of these events is that a gang of school bullies steals the book and discovers that it gives them the power to wreak havoc on the inhabitants of Fantasia. Strangely, these modern kids never seem surprised that magic exists. Think how long it took in the first film for even imaginative, ten-year-old Bastian to become convinced of the book's supernatural qualities. These bullies, much older and more concrete, never go through such a skeptical period. And later, when the Auryn falls into the hands of a teenage girl, she treats it with about the same level of awe as if she got hold of her parents' credit card.

There are actually some familiar actors in this mess. Mr. Koreander is played by the British character actor Freddie Jones, Bastian is played by the kid from "Free Willy," and the main bully is played by a relatively young Jack Black, who now probably would like to do with this film what George Lucas wants to do with the "Star Wars Holiday Special."

The first movie was great. The second wasn't so great, though it's not quite as bad as you've heard. Especially with there now being an even WORSE entry to this series - this being it!

Someone questioned why Warner Bros. didn't have the distribution rights to this entry. Well, at first they did. I remember reading a (very negative) review of this movie in "Variety" magazine, and Warner Bros. was set to distribute. It's quite obvious now that Warner Bros. threw away its distribution option (probably after seeing how horrible this movie is), and Miramax picked it up for a tiny release that lasted 5 minutes. (In my city, it only played for a few weekend matinees).

Oh yeah, what did I think of this movie? Quite frankly, it sucked. What were they thinking when they decided to jazz up the movie with contemporary rock 'n roll???? And most of the movie actually takes place not in the fantasy world, but in this world. The characters are especially obnoxious (especially the rock baby), and suffer from stereotypes. Plus, the movie seems to have forgotten a lot of what happened previously - the hero's dad knew about Fantasia, so the hero didn't have to hide anything from him - but for some reason, the hero keeps the incidents he was involved in a secret. The low point comes where the climax is not solved with magic or intelligence - but with karate. Yes, karate.

This movie does belong in a class by itself: Even worse than utterly terrible. I have been an aficionado of 'bad' movies for quite a long time, adoring those movies which only a group of friends and many drinks makes enjoyable. This movie was in fact so amazingly bad that I could not watch it past the first half hour or so. I only watched the rest via fast-forward the next morning. I've seen many films worse considered classically bad, this one beat them all hands down. I even had to start referring to possibly similar bad movies by saying "They may be in the NS3 category". There are those bad movies that are MST3K fun and then there are those that make you wish you had a sharp object to commit suicide with, this one is the latter.

This franchise went from excellent original fantasy, special effects for the genre, and well written characters to bad acting and writing in part 2, to movie of the week actors and rubber puppets in part 3. It's amazing how a film franchise that had such good promise sank faster than Lips Manless after taking "the bath". Especially if you're considering getting this for the kids, at least treat them to the original movie or something like the Peter Barnes inspired fantasy miniseries' from the late 90s.

I have watched many, many more movies than the average normal person. My tastes are varied...classic films, foreign films, silents and more. But one of my odder pursuits is my weird desire to watch all 100 of IMDB's Bottom 100 List....the 100 lowest rated major release movies. It's important to point out that I have never seen any of the "Neverending Story" films and I started with #3. And, since it made the list I thought I'd give it a watch.

In this film, Bastian is a kid who appears to be about 10 or 11 year-old. Oddly, he's begun at a new school...one that allows 'kids' there who are nearing retirement age (or so it seems). This small kid is chased and assaulted by a group of 20-something punks (led by 25 year-old Jack Black) and they're going to beat the stuffing out of him. To escape, he uses his magical book to enter the land of Fantasia. The problem is that the punks find the book and keep it...somehow realizing that will keep him stuck in Fantasia forever. But apparently there is another way out....and it's long and complicated and boring. And, somehow, some creatures from Fantasia were accidentally brought to the real world with Bastian...and he needs to find and return them.

The Henson creatures vary. A few look really nice. A couple seem rather dated and creepy. What's REALLY dated is the introduction, where you see some very early CGI which looks horrid today. Perhaps in 1994 folks were impressed by it.

What doesn't vary much is the writing and acting. The story seemed tired and the characters were often annoying. I particularly hated the rock creature who sang Steppinwolf's "Born to Be Wild" sequence and I assume a lot of folks in theaters felt the same way. I also thoroughly hated the bullies...who were old enough that they should have known how to act...but didn't. At least Black landed on his feet and eventually learned to act.

So do I recommend it? No...there are much better kid's films out there that WON'T make parents watching along bored. Plus, smaller kids probably shouldn't see it because the bullies are pretty frightening. And who should see it? Probably no one.

In spite of this, I don't think the movie deserves to be on the Bottom 100 and think mostly this was the result of folks who loved the original being so angry about the poor quality of this third film.