Review of Labyrinth (2012) by Harry W — 30 Aug 2013

Labyrinth was always a weird film to me as a kid because the puppets looked creepy, the story was strangely dark and gothic, and frankly it seemed more like a strange female fantasy to me since it was a teenage girl learning about taking things for granted through a journey to meet 1980's pop sensation David Bowie. I looked at it more for what it was on the surface than anything else.

Looking back at it now created an alternative response.

There are a few minor technical flaws, such as the strings on sets occasionally showing and the bright blue screen leaking in to some of the visuals.

And Jennifer Connelly doesn't supply any special acting skills to her part and can never articulate her performance as Sarah Williams into what it requires. She gives one which passes below-par by 1980's film standards, but it seems like the character she's portraying is significantly younger than she is which makes the how convincing the story is to be lesser. She does succeed in sharing a good chemistry with puppets which helps bring them to life though, so she is good to have on board. Plus she's pretty and sweet, so she's passable, even if she can't get her acting perfectly straight. And she doesn't exactly have script lines fit to her character the best, so the two way effort of characterising Sarah William's seems mostly to be her efforts.

With David Bowie, I'm really confused as what to truly think. His presence is great because he embodies the 1980's style the film follows, his voice is spectacular and his look with his iconic hairstyle is great. But his articulation of his facial gestures seems rather blank and so his expression of emotions becomes powerless. Basically who he is provides more to the part than what he supplies.

But Aesthetically, Labyrinth is excellent.

The gothic atmosphere of Labyrinth is set immediately through its excellent production design and great setting with a rough and dark surface quality to its set which predicts the story to be a dark fairy tale, the good kind. Labyrinth achieves a great feel to it which makes it feel like an 80's music video, as well as a fairytale which has a sense of childish fun and dark magic. The atmosphere makes Labyrinth a successful adventure of a film. Plus, the costumes are all good even though David Bowie's pants show off his crotch very clearly, the cinematography and editing is excellent and the musical score is great.

And the puppetry is absolutely excellent. With Jim Henson as director, the creator of all of the greatest puppet shows in the world, Labyrinth is set up to succeed. And in terms of puppetry it most definitely does. Although Jim Henson is better known for working in more child-oriented works such as The Muppets and Sesame Street, he explores a mix of childish and dark themes in Labyrinth and applies exceptional puppetry work to it. The puppets are all strongly convincing to the point where they're all too easy to embrace as real characters in the story. Labyrinth is full of memorable characters and is fun for it, making it easy to watch regardless of its dark atmosphere. The puppetry, voice acting and work of characters in costumes is terrific, and the audio is synced in to be the dialogue is great.

Labyrinth results in being a dark but fun film, flawed in parts but overall terrific in its exterior qualities and absolute sense of fun.