David Bowie is the Goblin King. No, really. He is. That's what I like about these goblins. They're broad-minded. They don't have the ridiculous restrictions of human monarchies, which tend to insist that the royal family be of the same species as its subjects. The goblins don't even insist that their ruler have the same ontological status, since they choose a celebrity who exists in the real world to rule over fictional goblins.
Something is deeply wrong with this movie. Here's the story: Sarah, forced to baby-sit, remarks out loud that she wishes the Goblin King would take the child away. So he does. Moreover he lets Sarah know that she must rescue the child by midnight or not at all. (How's that for an arbitrary plot device?) So she sets off through fantasyland, collects more sidekicks than you could shake a stick at, confronts the Goblin King, et cetera. According to the screenwriter, after she steps into fantasyland (that is, after filming began), they sort of made up events as they went along. Surprise, surprise.
There are a lot of great muppets along the way (conceptual drawings were by Brian Froud, who also did "The Dark Crystal"), but the strain of pretending that the film's going anywhere begins to show. But the true failure of invention is saved for the very end. Just in the nick of time, Sarah makes it through the Labyrinth to see the Goblin King in the flesh - and it's David Bowie. It's as if he's tonight's special guest star on "The Muppets".
Sorry. They needed a story. They needed it even to make the art direction look good - which seemed to be their primary aim.
Something is deeply wrong with this movie. Here's the story: Sarah, forced to baby-sit, remarks out loud that she wishes the Goblin King would take the child away. So he does. Moreover he lets Sarah know that she must rescue the child by midnight or not at all. (How's that for an arbitrary plot device?) So she sets off through fantasyland, collects more sidekicks than you could shake a stick at, confronts the Goblin King, et cetera. According to the screenwriter, after she steps into fantasyland (that is, after filming began), they sort of made up events as they went along. Surprise, surprise.
There are a lot of great muppets along the way (conceptual drawings were by Brian Froud, who also did "The Dark Crystal"), but the strain of pretending that the film's going anywhere begins to show. But the true failure of invention is saved for the very end. Just in the nick of time, Sarah makes it through the Labyrinth to see the Goblin King in the flesh - and it's David Bowie. It's as if he's tonight's special guest star on "The Muppets".
Sorry. They needed a story. They needed it even to make the art direction look good - which seemed to be their primary aim.