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| David
Bowie, Jennifer Connelly, Brian Henson, Dave Goelz |
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Anamorphic
widescreen |
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Dolby Digital
5.1 |
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DTS |
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Trailer(s) |
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Featurette(s) |
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Documentary |
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Audio commentary
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Deleted scenes
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Concept art
/ storyboards |
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Multi-angle
feature |
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Sarah: What exactly have you
sworn to?
Sir Didymus: That I am to guard this bridge with my life,
and that no one may cross *without my permission*.
Sarah: Well... May we have your permission to cross?
Sir Didymus: Well I, uh... I... that is, uh... hm... Yes?
A teenage girl must cross through
a fantasyland labyrinth to save her baby brother from the goblin
king.
 Pitched
somewhere between Alice in Wonderland and The Wizard of
Oz, Jim Henson's second and last non-Muppet feature film throws
a few humans into his usual menagerie of puppet in all shapes and
sizes. The droll screenplay by Terry Jones (formerly of Monty Python)
is very episodic, as it has teen heroine Connelly encounter a wide
variety of creatures and close calls. It's often funny and quite
good-natured, with some extra hilarity thrown in by some irresistibly
tacky disco tunes from David Bowie. He is clearly having a lot of
fun in a fittingly bizarre costume, a hairstyle that could only
have been conceived in the 1980s and no actual acting required.
The nonsensical dialogues and logic loops aren't as witty as they
would like to be, and some of the encounters are somewhat tedious.
Also, many of the sets look disappointingly stage-bound, giving
much of the movie a rather limited, almost amateurish look. But
a handful of Pythonesque jokes, the brilliant puppeteers and the
true sense of lighthearted fun make this a most enjoyable romp,
especially for children. |
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Labyrinth has seen almost too many releases on DVD to keep track of, including a series of identical single-disc releases and a Superbit version without extras but with a DTS audio track. The new two-disc Special Edition from Sony served as the basis for this review.
The anamorphic widescreen image
is framed at 2.35:1. The restored print presented here marks a noticeable improvement over all previous DVD releases. The color timing seems to have been redone, while dirt and scratches have been entirely removed, as have all traces of telecine wobble.
The soundtrack has similarly been remastered in Dolby Digital 5.1, with almost equally impressive results. While the limitations of the source material's fidelity are at times apparent, the mix presented here is powerful, with strong bass response and excellent clarity.
The 56-minute 'making-of'
documentary that was produced at the time for PBS provides an impressively comprehensive look behind the scenes. It shows how most of the movie's effects
were achieved and features interviews with all the principals of
cast and crew, entertainingly hosted by Jim Henson. New documentary material incorporates generous interview footage with heir apparent Brian Henson and conceptual designer Brian Froud, who also takes care of the dry but highly informative audio commentary track. Several design galleries round out the extras, together with the theatrical
trailer, which has poor image and sound quality but which is quite hilarious
('The imagination of Jim Henson! The wizardry of George Lucas! The
excitement of David Bowie!').
Dan
Hassler-Forest
Reviewed: December 22, 2007
Click
here for IMDB info on Labyrinth.
Click here
to return to the front page.
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