The NeverEnding Story III

I cannot begin to describe how awful this movie is. I watched the first Neverending Story when I was 7 or 8 or so, it came out in 1984, the year I was born, and I was absolutely fascinated with it. A few years later I had the pleasure of watching the second one, and although not as good as the first one, I have to say it is one of the better movie sequels I have seen (the people who comment on it give it too harsh criticism) It was still as imaginative and beautiful as the first one, and kept all the main characters. I saw the third one in the movie rental part of our grocery store when I was 14, and I got exited. I immediately rented it and brought it home and popped it in our VCR (you remember VCR's don't you?). It was not much longer after that that I was popping it out again. NES3, for lack of a better term,... sucks. The storyline was as unimaginative and vapid as you could hope for, it takes place in the real world, and not(as the title would have you believe)in Fantasia, and I get the feeling that it is because creating a fantasy world was a little out of their budget. This movie has "low budget" written all over it. The childlike empress isn't even blond! they get some brunette chick who looks nothing like her to play the role. After the fart jokes and potty humor commenced, I just couldn't take it any longer. My advice is don't wast your time and ruin your childhood memories with this piece of refuse.

This movie was awful, easily one of the worst movies I have ever seen, though not quite as abysmal as Home Alone 4, honestly that film is blasphemy. I love the first NeverEnding Story and consider one of the all time great fantasy films, and the second one while disappointing was pretty good, but this one was garbage. Sorry I hated it, it has none of the magic of the first film, none of the sense of wonder that enthralled me when I first saw NeverEnding Story as a child. The scenery was not at all good, dull and rather tacky, I just wonder whether the producers saw the first film for their inspiration, because actually in the first film, the sumptuous set design should've got an award, for it was fantastic. The script here was dreadful, and the plot was uninspired, and had many inconsistencies with the first film(ie. the omission of Atreyu and anything to do with Bastian's family). Not to mention the rushed ending and the rather cartoonish design of Falcor and his voice(ugh!). Even the acting was poor, Jason James Richter has little of the innocence and heroism and even the likability of Bastian, no matter how hard he tried. Jack Black, who I usually find entertaining was wasted and it doesn't help his character was such an unlikeable jerk, as was the usually brilliant Freddie Jones. All in all, awful, awful, awful! See the first film instead. 1/10 Bethany Cox

In the beginning, there was The Neverending Story. It is the best film ever made.

Then, there was The Neverending Story II. I'll vent my spleen over that mess later.

And then, there came this waste of film and effort. Hold on a minute while I go throw up.

While it is a clean, safe film in terms of subject matter, the third NES should never have been made. And I mean NEVER. The first two movies covered all the wondrous things within the original book, so I don't understand why this film was made at all. It is just cheesy, stupid, abysmal, and an absolute disgrace to the idea of The Neverending Story.

First of all, what's going on with this stepsister of Bastian's that has somehow appeared? Wrong, wrong. . . Then, what happened to good old Falkor? And most of all, where is Atreyu? If you are bold enough to see this film, that is the one thing you will distinctly notice if you've seen the other two- no Atreyu.The boy who played Bastian was not nearly as obnoxious as the actor from the second film, but he just doesn't hold a candle to the original actor, Barret Oliver.

I have only seen this movie once, because I was informed of how awful it was, and just had to see for myself. It was a waste of my precious time. I hardly remember the plot line or anything important like that because it just didn't stick with me. One gets the impression that this was made as a sort of kid/family-friendly approach to The Neverending Story, because it is just so simplistic, and sacrifices the charm of the original characters and settings for the sake of being funny and entertaining. But trust me, it is NOT funny and it is NOT entertaining. Any NES fan worth their salt would be appalled by this film. If however you are not familiar with the Neverending Story, see the original 1984 movie and read the book and be contented with that.

Do not subject yourself to the torturous nightmare that is the Neverending Story 3, I implore you.

As for a star rating out of ten, I give this film nothing. Nil. Zip. Nichts.

The first movie was great. The second wasn't so great, though it's not quite as bad as you've heard. Especially with there now being an even WORSE entry to this series - this being it!

Someone questioned why Warner Bros. didn't have the distribution rights to this entry. Well, at first they did. I remember reading a (very negative) review of this movie in "Variety" magazine, and Warner Bros. was set to distribute. It's quite obvious now that Warner Bros. threw away its distribution option (probably after seeing how horrible this movie is), and Miramax picked it up for a tiny release that lasted 5 minutes. (In my city, it only played for a few weekend matinees).

Oh yeah, what did I think of this movie? Quite frankly, it sucked. What were they thinking when they decided to jazz up the movie with contemporary rock 'n roll???? And most of the movie actually takes place not in the fantasy world, but in this world. The characters are especially obnoxious (especially the rock baby), and suffer from stereotypes. Plus, the movie seems to have forgotten a lot of what happened previously - the hero's dad knew about Fantasia, so the hero didn't have to hide anything from him - but for some reason, the hero keeps the incidents he was involved in a secret. The low point comes where the climax is not solved with magic or intelligence - but with karate. Yes, karate.

Sadly, the running joke of Engywook and Urgl having to go to the bathroom, but being unable to do so, is one of the entertaining things about this film. But it does get tiresome. And the baby rock-biter is cute, if incredibly stupid. But if you have ever seen the first movie, or read the book, you will most likely not care for this movie at all. The plot is poor, Falcore looks extremely cartoonish as do the Rockbiters, and the Nasties...well, they just aren't that scary. Give me Gmork any day, please!

This is a tolerable children's movie ONLY if you have no other knowledge of The Neverending Story.