Labyrinth (1986)

As a kid, I would've sworn I didn't live in a particularly devoutly Christian household. Sure, I'd been baptized, and I went to Sunday School and Girl's Brigade, but I figured that was just what people did. Religion was just a series of stories kids learned to teach them to be good to one another, wasn't it?

The only thing that did seem slightly off was my parents' aversion to sci-fi and fantasy; I remember being told at an early age that my father didn't want to read Witch Winkle to me, from Twinkle comics, and that if I wanted to read it I'd have to learn to do so myself. I applied myself assiduously to this task, but even if the final outcome was positive I still retain a nagging resentment over every single battle I had to try and obtain a fantasy fiction book over a junior encyclopaedia or some or other historic family saga.

Films like Labyrinth, therefore? They were the forbidden fruit, and I craved them on a level that bordered on the pathological even though they inevitably proved slightly disappointing, as, for instance, when the cinematic incarnation of the Neverending Story only covered a tiny percentage of the content of the book my seven-year-old self had had to mount a strategic PR campaign to be able to possess.

Looking back, though, it was an interesting time for children's films - while computer-generated effects were still in their infancy, puppetry and animatronic technology had been coming on in leaps and bounds. At the forefront of this was Jim Henson and his creature workshop, creators of The Muppets and Sesame Street as well as movies like The Dark Crystal.

Labyrinth, in fact, was created in an attempt to succeed at capturing the audiences The Dark Crystal, with its selfconscious ugliness and kid-alienating horror, could not. Former Python Terry Jones was drafted in to write an appealing screenplay, and David Bowie was recruited to provide a compelling antagonist in the form of the Goblin King.

At the heart of the story, however, is Sarah, (Jennifer Connolly), a fifteen-year-old girl of an imaginative turn of mind who bitterly resents being called upon to look after her baby stepbrother, Toby. One night when Toby won't stop crying, frustration leads her to verbally wish for the goblins to take him away, little knowing that these creatures actually exist and are listening to her every word. Mere moments later, she finds herself with thirteen hours to traverse the Goblin King's labyrinth in the hope of winning Toby back from this menacing but oddly enticing individual...

The good

I cannot even begin to imagine the amount of work that must have gone into bringing this one to the big screen. Labyrinth looks fantastic, boasting large-scale puppet work, complex sets, beautiful costumes and even a primitive CGI barn owl. And then there's David Bowie, a work of art in and of himself, and the subject of many a pre-teen fantasy amongst girls of my generation.

I think similar work probably went into the script, too - it recalls Alice in Wonderland, yes, but also Red Riding Hood, and any number of other stories where a naive young girl enters a dark and unfamiliar place and embarks on frightening adventures. This is definitely a film with subtext, and a more diligent reviewer might delve deeper. I do like that somebody thought to put it there, even if they didn't do so with any particular subtlety or skill. 

The bad

Aged ten or so, I remember thinking Labyrinth was slightly rubbish - well, more than slightly. Of course, it could have been the weight of a couple of years of eager anticipation, but I have vague memories of bad acting and much more definite ones of incoherent, illogical storytelling.

Nearly thirty years later, I feel duty bound to report that on this occasion, my younger self hit the nail right on the head.

I don't think anything about the film would be unforgivable if it wasn't for the appallingly bad acting - the entire cast is guilty of this and so it's probably unfair to dump the majority of the blame on Jennifer Connelly's then 14-year-old shoulders, so I'll dump it on Henson for casting her instead. She reads every line like an early run-through of a school play, distracting the viewer from what's actually a pretty compelling kiddie horror story.  Bowie is scarcely any better, though, sounding like a bad impersonator doing his best (worst) comedy accent.

And then we come to the question of Terry Jones attempting to write about a barely pubescent girl. It's less sinister than I make it sound, obviously; unlike many performers of their generation, the Pythons have kept a relatively clean reputation. Still, there's some fairly heavy messages to the effect that in order to grow up and be a decent woman, you have to cast your toys aside (literally, in one scene) and start focusing on what really matters: babies. Why couldn't Sarah have grown up for her own sake rather than that of a small child?

Beyond that, the narrative structure is what, when I like a film, I tend to refer to as dreamlike. I didn't particularly like Labyrinth, though, so I'll cheerfully refer to it as a hot mess where things happen in sequence without any sort of linking elements to make it make any sort of sense. Some of the things are fun, certainly, or scary, or visually appealing, but there isn't really any structure to them - it's kind of like a showreel for the Creature Workshop and their admittedly stunning work.

 The verdict

Would I recommend Labyrinth? Probably not. Would I recommend that you steer clear, though? Again, no, actually. So, is it a noble failure? Probably not, because 1) a lot of people seem to love it and 2) nothing with that many gratuitous fart gags could ever be classed as noble. Watch it to appreciate the artistry, at least, because we're unlikely to see its like again.