User reviews

Absence of Muppets aside, this is probably the most Jim Henson movie ever made. On more than one occasion, it feels like the Creature Shop was running wild, coming up with all manner of strangeness just to put in the film. The creativity is never more apparent than during the Shaft of Hands scene; only a gaggle of puppeteers could've pulled that off. Man, it must've been a lot of fun working on this movie!

This is only one reason Labyrinth excels (and lives on past the '80s). The teen angst is real, the songs are great, the lines are funny . . . and then there's David Bowie. The Goblin King brought to life. Bowie struts around the sets with godlike command, at home not only in the role but also the songs, and he offers one hell of a performance. He's exceptional here.

I haven't seen this since I was a teenager, and it holds up very well. It pleases me greatly that the worm has sort of become a staple in my house. We all love doing the accent. "Don't go that way! Nevah go that way! *sigh* Shoulda kept on goin' down that way, she'da gone straight to the castle."

Not to mention Ludo. "Smell baaad!"

LABYRINTH is Jim Benson's follow-up of the grotesquely eye-opening puppet enterprise THE DARK CRYSTAL (1982, 7/10), and also his final painstaking work, where he pairs a cherubic Jennifer Connelly and a trend-setting David Bowie (look at his 80s coiffure!) as human actors with all his accomplished puppets, to present a spellbinding fairytale in a labyrinth at the heart of a Goblin kingdom. It was a disastrous commercial failure upon its release, but time has been pretty generous to it and now it has achieved the cult status and even a possible sequel has been hatched for many years.

As bedazzling as Bowie plays the almighty Jareth the Goblin king, this is no prince and princess romance considering Connelly's Sarah is only a 15-year-old, after her embittered wish accidental becomes true, Sarah faces a daunting task and must solve the labyrinth within 13 hours, otherwise her little stepbrother Toby (Froud) who has been snatched by Jareth and his underlings, will become a goblin forever.

Not as otherworldly as THE DARK CRYSTAL, but again Benson and his prop teams let their imagination soar with no boundaries, there are biting fairies, countless helping hands, the paradoxical door riddle, a juggernaut cleaner, talking walls, head-detached creatures called Fierys, the bog of eternal stench, junk-yard hags, behemoth metallic guards just to name a few. Plus, the picture distinguishes itself as a prototype of computer-generated CGI technology,

For Sarah, it is also a journey of learning not to take things for granted, don't be as spoiled and selfish as she is in the beginning, and making friends alongside, soon she will be accompanied by the cowardly dwarf Hoggle, the giant beast-looking Ludo, who is actually very timid and can summon rocks, and a chivalrous fox named Sir Didymus. All is granted with vivid impersonations thanks to the excellent puppeteers behind them. One innate shortcoming of puppets-operation is the lack of fluidity in motion, especially during the large-scale actions, that's why the film slackens a bit in its second half when Sarah's squad grows, and during the castle-raiding scenes, it becomes rather distractive. But as luck would have it, a final highlight arrives in a gravity-defying stairwell resembles M.C. Escher's RELATIVITY, where Sarah faces off Jareth alone and rebuffs his conquest, her mission finally has been accomplished and Jareth is defeated and morphs into the form of an owl.

Bowie contributed five songs to the soundtrack, the most striking one is AS THE WORLD FALLS DOWN, played in a critical scenery where Sarah's memory is fading and she appears as a princess in a masquerade, captivated by Jareth's gaze and supposedly should forget about her mission and capitulate to Jareth's glamour. Connelly is peachy and sufficiently engaging as a little heroine acquires wisdom and compassion in this phantasm fable, as the film cunningly suggests with all the paraphernalia in her bedroom of a girl obsessed with a fanciful wonderland. I could imagine if I had watched it when I was a kid, this movie could have been stuck in my memory as an all-time classic, and I doubt the current cinematic puppetry can ever reach the same altitude of ingeniousness and virtuosity.

Enjoyable fantasy in which a teen girl needs to find her baby brother and goes into a fantastic world , a land beyond imagination . It deals with 15-year-old Sarah (Jennifer Connelly) accidentally wishes her baby half-brother , Toby (Toby Froud) away to the Goblin King Jareth (David Bowie) who will keep Toby if Sarah does not complete his Labyrinth in 13 hours. As she enters into labyrinth where everything seems possible and nothing is what it seems. Sarah has to rescue him before midnight, or the baby will became a goblin.

Fantastic fairy tale about a girl who dives into a wonderous fantasy world through a labyrinth , in which to be showed a fabulous sense of wonder , imagination , astonishment and amazement . This is a gorgeous story specifically designed to appeal to as many cultural groups as possible . This wonderful flick is an enjoyable tale with great charm from a screenplay by Terry Jones , being based on a story by Dennis Lee and the same filmmaker Jim Henson , trying to incorporate too much dreamland with fantastic beings like Goblins , dwarfs , fairies , giant monsters , among others weird and bizarre creatures . They have been made by means of puppets and no by computer generator effects but at the time hadn't been invented . As the Ludo rig originally weighed over 100 pounds, but was brought down to just over 75 pounds, as it was becoming too difficult for the actor/puppeteer inside the suit. However , the owl in the title sequence is computer generated , the first attempt at a photo-realistic CGI animal character in a feature film . The visual beauty of the impressive scenarios give the movie a real sense of wonder and surprise . Breathtaking production design and sets are visually rousing and appealing . And a spectacular "Dance Magic" scene consisted of over 48 puppets, 52 puppeteers, and 8 people in goblin costumes . Colorful and evocative cinematography by Alex Thomson . Imaginative and sensitive musical score by Trevor Jones ; including various agreeable songs by the great David Bowie .

The movie was stunningly directed by Jim Henson , early deceased at 53 years old , though was his final feature film , however, being continued his work by his son Brian Henson . Jim established the Creature Shop, a puppet studio and as he directed the successful "The Muppet Show" (1976) , it became a smash hit and would eventually become the most widely watched series in television history. Hungry for a new challenge, Henson made The Muppets movie(1979), defying the popular industry opinion that his characters would never work in a movie . The film became a hit and spawned a series of features which included the moody fantasy Dark Crystal (1982), which was a drastic and bold departure from the amiable tone of his previous work . The most successful TV work in the 1980s was "Fraggle Rock" (1983), that became renowned for being as brilliant with puppetry as ILM was at special effects . When he died all too soon in 1990, he was indisputably one of the geniuses of puppetry. More importantly, he was a man who achieved his phenomenal success while still retaining his social conscience and artistic integrity as his work in promoting environmentalism and his brilliant "The story teller" (1988) series respectively attest to and , of course , this ¨Labyrinth¨.

My god... in this movie you become hypnotized by David Bowie's Bulge!!! He plays this Goblin King that has taken Sarah's baby bother after she accidentally asks him to do so. Yeah, she isn't that bright and she is obsessed with fantasies. So the only way to get back the little brat is to go through this huge maze. This isn't any ordinary hedge maze... this thing is freaky and full of puppets! Ugly puppets, and most of them are up to no good. So the lesson in this movie is be careful what you wish for or you might have to take it back by being forced to go through a giant maze full of some messed up s*** and be forced to stare at David Bowie's bulge! It is big though....

Watching Labyrinth on TV the other day, after years of having not seen it, I'm reminded in general how I see Jim Henson's work, via the usual Muppets (in the 'Muppet' movies) or in the non-traditional ones (the spectacular film 'the Dark Crystal'), just a smidgen different than as a kid. For one thing, there's the nostalgia factor, of having loved the muppets as a kid and seeing how the entertainment value is still there, if on a slightly different wavelength then as a kid- some jokes more received and understood and some moments not as freakish as when back in the day. But with Labyrinth I just thought, despite all of the talent and marvelous special effects, "this hasn't really changed much for me since I was a kid, it's still just, well, good."

The story itself- of young Jennifer Connelly going after her baby brother kidnapped by the Goblin King (David Bowie, in full-on regalia) while navigating through the tangential directions of the Labyrinth with help (or not) from creatures- is just a fairy tale for kids. That it's got some clever direction from Henson is not without its merits and some scenes get the fantasy feeling right, even for its time and visual FX limitations. But if there are limitations anywhere noticeable it's in the script by Terry Jones, from the story by Henson and Dennis Lin, where chances to reach to a larger audience (like with the Dark Crystal, which works for adults just as well as for kids) are missed. The humor in the film does work here and there, but there are also the Bowie songs to contend with which are, more or less, rather disappointing and, well, 80's in retrospect. I still liked the inventive uses with the supporting Muppet-type characters, the little troupe of sorts that follows Connelly's character till the end (almost). However, having seen it again, I'm not sure when I would want to watch it again, unless I had some kids around.

In short, one of the lesser Henson films (ironically the only one produced by George Lucas) which means that it still has enough visual prowess and imagination to top the current films reaching for its target audience.

And the puppetry is amazing.

The acting from the main actress is pretty weak and melodramatic. what saves this film is a hilariously campy David Bowie performance and Amazing creature effects that manage to a technical marvel and dripping with visual personality.

Come for David Bowie, stay for The creature effects.

I just typed up a long review of this film and then I lost it. Ugh.

The film was pretty good. Amazing puppetry and I loved the lack of CGI.

I didn't get the resolution from the main conflict. It just kind of ended. I won't spoiler anything but I was hoping for some more clear resolution to the film but wasn't left with much of anything. Unless I missed it.

The acting was not that great. There were only like 2 humans in it that had much of a dialogue. Why was Bowie in this? He fit the part but just wasn't a strong actor. Neither was the lead female.

Pretty amazing set work here. It's worth watching for just that.

So I've never seen this before, and it certainly is dated in terms of being very specifically from the 80s, but the puppets and the puppetry is top-notch even today! I suspect you have to be a Bowie fan to love it: he is not a great actor and his pants are a bit too thin and his music is a bit forgettable (same melody, uninteresting harmony, strange lyrics that are not that thought or emotion provoking). His hair is fantastic, I give him that, and great make up. I am, obviously, not a huge fan, though for the most part I think he's good and interesting look at and has a very nice voice. So apart from the strange and sudden breaks into songs with questionable lyrics, the film is a great fantasy adventure. It is certainly unique.

One important plot point that I wasn't sure about: just what is the GK's motivation? Why does he take babies? What does he do with them? (presumably, turn them into goblins, so all those goblins were babies at some point. Are they immediately turned into mature, older goblins or is there a goblin nursery somewhere? Shouldn't Sarah have taken on a bigger task than to just save her brother, but more like bring the GK down so he cannot steal any babies again?) Most of these questions were fueled by the fact that David Bowie just looked bored and unoccupied sitting on his throne, playing with the cute human baby every time he was on screen... So in this sense, I think the plot and the story are a bit simple. While Sarah does have a story arc (she emotionally grows as a result of her journey), and even Hoggles has an emotional arc (he learns what it means to be a friend), the villain is just one-dimensional and inexplicable.

Who doesn't love a maze? I know I do, even if I'm not sure I've ever been in one. In this Jim Henson directed fantasy movies, Jennifer Connelly as Sarah is the lucky, or unlucky young girl who gets the opportunity to enter an absolute doozy of a maze after she rashly wishes away her crying baby brother to the goblins while on baby-sitting duty.

As a result of the baby's kidnapping, she finds herself transported Alice-like to the amazing labyrinth ruled over by David Bowie's malevolent maze-runner goblin-king Jareth who has evil designs on the baby. To rescue baby brother, she must find her way to the end of the maze inside the next thirteen hours. Game on, as they say and so she sets out on her quest but in true Dorothy-like fashion she picks up three very different companions along the way, a querulous troll, a massive honey-monster type and an uppity guard who gads about on his big, shaggy, but slightly cowardly dog.

Jareth of course will stop at nothing to thwart her and puts a succession of obstacles in her way, including at one point giving Sarah a Snow White-like contaminated fruit to make her lose her memory. Eventually she makes it to the end, only to be confronted with a gravity-defying Jareth in a final reckoning between the two.

The previous adventures of the three afore-mentioned universally-known girlish heroines certainly inform much of the narrative but it's the wonderful animatronics and puppetry combined with the imaginative set-design which together really do the heavy lifting here. Connelly in her first major role is well-cast as the initially trepidatious teenager embodying an early version of girl-power although I was less convinced by Bowie, not helped by his wearing a crazy wig and tights throughout.

Nevertheless, helped by some lively if unessential songs by Bowie himself, I found it impossible not to get caught up in Sarah's adventure, the better for its reliance on pre-CGI effects to create the dream world. Maybe I wasn't quite amazed but I certainly had fun following her steps in this enjoyable modern fairy tale.

david bowie made this movie being the head goblin, and with the tightness of the tights, i was lead to think other things. the movie is about a brat that cant handle the responsiblities of babysitting, and wishes that goblins and ghouls will steal the baby! but of course, she is talking out of spite and when the baby does go missing, she realizes that the fantasy that the "goblin king" has becomes a reality. i found the music addicting and was anxious, since it was a muppet movie and i wanted to see the creative creatures that she would meet along the labyrinth. the labyrinth stuck me as an odd name for a movie, so i looked up the word and discovered it's a board game with mazes that twist and turn. so i understood that significant meaning and found it to be rather original. the movie is a guaranteed hit to those who either like muppets or the entertaining of david bowie's musicals talents and his appearance, alone that could help several people, one being my sister. (B B-)

The Labyrinth. Even the title made you want to see it. I saw it last year and was amazed by what they could do years before my birth. The muppets where great and the acting was one to remember. The plot line wasn't well thought out but the writters out did themselfs in this movie. This is in my top 50 movies somwhere near 30. But I would of strongly hoped for and sequal! Saw it last year and just though that baby Toby is now 17. If you enjoyed other muppet films you will love this one.

Nostalgia holds a magical power over people. It can warm souls, comfort sadness, project youth, and even cloud judgment. This makes films like Labyrinth particularly difficult to read critically. Much like Goonies, Henson's Labyrinth's, a mix of wry comedy and innovatively designed ideas, put a loving trance on swaths of 20-40 year olds who happened to see it at the right time. Much like many of its ilk, I'm not sure it completely deserves all the accolades it gets from its fanboys/girls. However, it's still fantastical fun, even if its storytelling urgency is less than fully engulfing. It's a film more interested in incidents than plot (girl wishes brother would leave, goblins steal brother, sister has to get brother back). In that sense, and many others, it hearkens Alice in Wonderland (my favorite Disney Animated film). It's an intensely imaginative movie that follows a bored young girl (played by Connelly with the charisma of a mannequin) as she encounters an adventure full of odd characters, winding streets, and inexplicable magic. The characters within the maze are fun and distinct, and Bowie matches the dark mystery of the story while keeping a childish wonder right below the surface. The difference between this and other kids-fantasy-adventures I REALLY love is hard to pinpoint. The design is outstanding, the humor is affable, the characters are surprising, and the scenes pop with surprise. Again, I can only assume my distance from this film during my early age keeps me at a slight distance. Nonetheless, this is an enjoyable piece of 80s pop-culture that I'm shocked Tim Burton and Johnny Depp haven't ruined with a CG-covered remake. Give it time.

Recently a facebook friend posted a clip from this movie, which I'd never heard of. David Bowie playing the goblin king in a Jim Henson movie? That had to be worth watching.

It was, although I probably would have enjoyed it more when I was 12. For one thing, when I was 12 I wouldn't have minded Jennifer Connolly's high-school-play caliber of acting, nor the general quality of cheap kids movie that peeks out from time to time.

While at times the movie feels as shoddy as a student film, at other times it shows flashes of incredible genius and imagination. But more than anything else, this movie is just really weird. Bowie is an odd choice to write songs for a children's movie, the story floats somewhere between fantasy and meta-fantasy and there is some traditional kid's movie moralizing mixed in with things you don't usually see taught in kid's films (like, life is unfair, so sometimes you have to be unfair too).

I can't say this is a great movie, but I would certainly consider it well worth watching.

Few things scared me more as a child than watching David Bowie in Labyrinth. Re-watching the film as a grown man, it still kind of freaks me out if I'm perfectly honest. Irrational phobias aside, this is a movie with it's own unique style of magic and enchantment that always felt like a very personal experience.

It is certainly looking dated and the acting leaves a lot to be desired, but there is enough charm and originality for the film to remain relevant and exciting. Bowie's compositions add an extremely surreal air to the movie and Jim Henson's weird and wonderful creatures are perfectly loveable. It's understandable why this movie originally drew a lot of criticism, but it's good to see that it has left a positive mark on its viewers over the years.

From the creative and majestic world of Jim Henson comes Labyrinth*. A zany fantasy movie in which a girl must journey to the center of a magical labyrinth to save her baby brother. There were fantastical creatures, a bog of eternal stench, and some musical numbers. David Bowe played the androgynous troll king that controlled the labyrinth, so you know he had to have a couple of musical numbers himself. It was an excellent display of puppeteering even if the plot wasn't the best.

*Without ever a need to spell the word I never realized that the "y" was after the "r."

Another childhood classic that I decided to reappraise now I am a cynical jaded adult. For clarification purposes, I actually saw it during a limited cinema release and it didn't appear to be remastered in any way.

For the uninitiated, Jennifer Connelly plays Sarah, a teenage girl who is frustrated by her infant brothers crying to the point she calls for the Goblin King (David Bowie) to take him away, which he duly obliges. To rescue her brother, Sarah has 13 hours to navigate the labyrinth and get to the Goblin Kings castle, but the maze is populated by both friends and foes and physics and logic don't always apply.

Directed by the legendary Jim Henson, the puppetry work is, of course, top notch. They have a timeless quality that still rings true today. Some of the other visual effects though haven't aged quite as well, the CGI owl that bookends the film and some of the green screen work don't measure up to today's standards - though the film is now 30 years old. Plot wise, it's a little wayward - more like a collection of events rather than a story that progresses. It doesn't really earn Sarah's redemption given how horrible she is in the opening scenes.

That said, some of these events are now iconic moments, mostly linked to the songs that Bowie wrote and performed for the production. These include the song and dance routine around "Magic Dance" and the MC Esher themed "Within You". Bowie is excellent throughout, funny but with a danger behind the eyes that never goes away. There's lots of humour in the film, the contribution of Terry Jones as scriptwriter is evident.

Whether a younger audience will still view it as kindly, I can't say but 30 years later "Labyrinth" is still hugely enjoyable to someone like me, whose been watching it as long as he's been watching films at all.

There you go, 300 words and no mention of David Bowie's crotch ..... damn.

This is what happens when you let Jim Henson make a film. His imagination runs wild and we are left with possibly the weirdest yet most creative film I've ever seen. An over imaginative teenage girl wishes her baby brother to be taken by the Goblin King from one of the books that she is reading. Bending surrealism and reality together, we join her on a quest through a labyrinth where she must find her brother before the thirteenth hour passes. There are two morals to this story. One: never recite words from a fantasy book. Two: sometimes life just isn't fair. She really should've listened to Run DMC's "and it's like that, and that's the way it is"...would've saved us 100 minutes. Glad she didn't though, because this was incredibly enjoyable. Forget about the thin story where it just consists of one crazy scenario to the other, and put aside the weird musical numbers that just gives Bowie a chance to sing. This film was all about world building, and what a world it built! Highly creative filled with imaginative details in every corner of the maze. There are characters everywhere. Characters walking around, characters in the walls, characters on characters...literally everywhere. It just reminded me of those role playing fantasy books where you have to turn to certain pages to decide the fate of your quest. Henson's famous puppetry and animatronics does not go amiss here, it gave the film life. Plus, his directing style was rather noteworthy, particularly an illusion that is presented by having the camera at a precise angle. The production values were incredible. The labyrinth itself was full of wonder, different architectural types and interesting foliage. David Bowie was menacing as the Goblin King, wanted more screen time though. A young Jennifer Connelly somehow carried the whole narrative by herself. Impressive. The ending was a tad bit cheesy but heck, this was damn enjoyable. Would've liked a more substantiating plot. But I wanted a crazy 80's fantasy adventure, and I just got that.

A menagerie of puppets, puppets everywhere!

Got a lot of Jennifer Connelly's performances, so wanted more, research showed me this, her big vintage performance, so took the leap recently and got me the 30th Anniversary edition.

Was skeptic about the puppet-fest, but settled in to watch.

I have to admit, of course it is clearly a good film with a magical story-line, it is just not in my line. Jennifer Connelly started off bad, and I thought, hoo boy, in for a dismal ride at this rate, but she improved quickly, maybe the first few scenes should have been redone?

Weird and wonderful stuff. Check out the Lady Godiva fairy. Hey, there's a guy prancing around in here wearing a blonde wig, looks just like Tina Turner.

Just kidding.

Wonderful cinematography. Cute long-haired heroine. Bright colors and lots of wondrous scenes. And, ah, yes, er, Hoggle. What have I done to deserve Hoggle? Face like Ernest Borgnine. And a very unimpressive choice for the baby, who spoils all his scenes, as all film-babies invariably do, but this particular baby was the conceptual designer's, part and parcel. Anyway... Total magic. I wouldn't have been here if not for Jennifer, but let me put it this way, however back-handed my comments might be, anything good said from the non-converted one here actually speaks more than the volumes by the straight-out fans.

So, won't make a habit of this kind of stuff, but yeah, good work.

Labyrinth is a good movie with a reasonably well developed plot and a talented cast. The highlight of the film is, without a doubt, all the beautiful creations made by Jim Henson and his incredible creatures workshop. Credit is certainly due to all the amazing characters and sets that are showcased here.

The story itself, on the other hand, is not as impressive, there's really nothing compelling about it. We follow a young girl named Sarah struggling to solve a labyrinth to save her baby brother. The plot is very back and fourth, as well as frustrating at times.

The characters are not likable, we are never given a reason to support Sarah, or even for us to actually want her to succeed in her quest, while David Bowie is certainly charismatic as the Goblin King, it's difficult to find him likable as a result of his motives. While its flawed, Labyrinth is a beautiful film, sadly the kind that would not be made today, I would recommend it as a family film as long as your children are not too sensitive.

A young girl must complete a quest in order to retrieve her baby brother the Goblin King before its too late.

Best Performance: David Bowie

Resentful at being made to babysit by her father and step-mother, Sarah - an imaginative but whiny teenage girl - inadvertently wishes her baby brother, Toby into the Labyrinth; a magical world populated by goblins and ruled over by Jareth, The Goblin King, played by the late, great David Bowie.

Jareth informs her that unless she can solve the Labyrinth in thirteen hours, Toby will be turned into a goblin, confident that she will be unable to do so.

It seems that everything and everyone in the Labyrinth is out to get Sarah and throw her off the scent, so she has to try to befriend the characters she meets in order for them to help her. Among the myriad of colourful creatures there's Hoggle, a troll, Ludo, a hairy beast-monster with the ability to control rocks and Didymus, a feisty, scrappy little dog-knight.

Though it has a large following now, I was surprised to learn that Labyrinth was a commercial failure at the time it was released, and it's very hard to pinpoint exactly why.

Labyrinth is like Jim Henson's take on the Alice in Wonderland story, with all the imagination and creativity you'd expect from a Henson production and just a hint of sexual awakening/coming-of-age thrown in for good measure. Even when watching as a small child, I picked up on the chemistry between Jareth and Sarah. And noticed Bowie's astonishingly tight pants...

In addition to having themes that appeal to both children and adults, Labyrinth shows an immense attention to detail which give it great re-watchability value.

Though I've heard many times that Bowie must have done this movie for a quick cash grab, I never got that impression at all. On the contrary, it looks like he was enjoying every minute and is now perhaps one of his most iconic and defining moments of his career, especially to those born in the eighties and after.

Good, but a bit disappointing. Cast and crew read like a who's who: directed by Jim Henson (of The Muppets fame), written by Terry Jones (of Monty Python), produced by George Lucas, starring David Bowie and Jennifer Connolly, music by David Bowie.

Decent enough fantasy-drama, but plot is a bit random. Has some periods where it just drifts. The use of musical interludes just seemed out of place, and like padding.

Good special effects and use of puppets, as you would expect from Jim Henson. Good performances from David Bowie and (15-year old) Jennifer Connelly, in one of her earliest roles.

Adults might find it a bit random and inconsistent at times, but kids should love it.

I had heard about this movie for a long time but never watched it until it showed up again on TV recently, probably in part tribute to the recently passed David Bowie.

Overall, it was an OK movie, not Star Wars or Lord of the Rings level in my opinion but still fun and entertaining to watch (it kind of reminds me of "Legend" another fantasy movie with Tom Cruise and Mia Sara that appeared the year before). I liked the humor but sometimes the appearance of the puppets were too distracting and that is what I think dragged the ratings down. Jennifer Connelly held her own as such a young actress at the time and David Bowie was spectacular as the brooding, sinister Jareth the Goblin King.

The plot and storyline are what keeps viewers like me in tune for years to come. The thought of a selfish teenager wishing something in a fit of anger without first thinking carefully about it repeats itself over and over again and is a wise message to tell to all children and adolescents. For this alone, Labyrinth is worth watching. I kind of think this story could come out even more vividly through the books that came out shortly after the movie was released but I'd have to find out for myself.

"Labyrinth" is a film that holds a special place in the hearts of many children of the eighties. Initially a box office disappointment, the film has nevertheless built up a strong cult following in the 30 years since its release.

The story concerns a selfish teen girl (16-year old Jennifer Connelly) who, inspired by a play that she's rehearsing, wishes for her baby brother to be taken away by goblins. Realizing that her idle wish has come true, she must then embark on a quest to rescue her brother from the fearsome Goblin King (David Bowie).

Future Oscar winner Jennifer Connelly ably carried the film in one of her earliest roles while David Bowie's distinctive portrayal of Jareth ranks as arguably his most memorable screen performance. Additionally, the many talented performers involved in bringing to life the denizens of the labyrinth are deserving of high praise.

The screenplay by Monty Python alumni Terry Jones is grounded in fairy tale tradition but shows abundant imagination. Filled with twists and turns, the viewer never knows what to expect. Apart from the main plot, there are a handful of songs that were expressly written for the movie by David Bowie but I wouldn't rank them among his best work. Their distinctly 80's sound doesn't exactly argue for the movie's timelessness.

Helmed by legendary puppeteer Jim Henson, the movie shows considerable care in bringing the labyrinth's fantastic creatures to life. Visually, the movie has an alternately colourful and moody look that takes full advantage of the marvellous production design. The special effects are pretty good as well, including some CGI that was ahead of its time.

Ultimately, "Labyrinth" is a thoroughly entertaining family-oriented fantasy adventure, though one that does show its age to some extent. Still, with a combination of fine performances, an imaginative storyline and appealing visuals, "Labyrinth" promises a memorable viewing experience for fantasy lovers both young and old.