Movie review – “The Neverending Story” (1984) ***1/2

Big film from my youth, the sensation of its day – it ran for over a year in the cinema. And it still has that great idea – a boy reading a book set in the never-never land of Fantastia doesn’t realise that he’s actually part of the story. The special effects are still pretty good and there’s some great moments – the death of the horse, the revenge of the bullies, the sad rock creature, the climax. Atreyu is a whiny brat, constantly complaining – the only heroic thing he really does is dodge a zap of lightning and kill a wolf, the dragon does all the other hard work. And it’s entirely possible to do a Nazi reading of it – an encroaching, soul-destroying force (Communism) threatens a peace-loving kingdom, so the empress (fuhrer) sends a member of the Nazi youth out to save the day. But I guess you could do a Nazi reading of every German film if you tried hard enough. Great theme song and Barrett Oliver is winning as the boy – what happened to him? He was everywhere 1984-85 then disappeared.