The NeverEnding Story (1984)
Directed by Wolfgang Petersen
While hiding from bullies in his school's attic, a young boy discovers the extraordinary land of Fantasia, through a magical book called The Neverending Story. The book tells the tale of Atreyu, a young warrior who, with the help of a luck dragon named Falkor, must save Fantasia from the destruction of The Nothing.
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What critics compared The NeverEnding Story to
This means doing a lot of traveling, so it helps that Aang has with him a giant, friendly, furry, flying beast (think here of "The NeverEnding Story").
He and his “sky bison,” a giant flying creature that looks like a cross between the Luck Dragon of The NeverEnding Story (1984) and one of Maurice Sendak’s Wild Things, became trapped under the ice of the northern territory and were freed by Katara (Nicola Peltz), a young woman of the Water Tribe who is also a nascent bender, and her older and very protective brother Sokka (Jackson Rathbone).
Much-loved characters from the animated series are brought to life, including the monkey Momo and a flying bison named Appa (who looks terrific but is a little too reminiscent of the luckdragon Falcor from Wolfgang Petersen’s The NeverEnding Story, 1984).
Filmed in 2-D with 3-D applied after the fact - with marginal results - its muddled mythology is a patchwork of influences, from "Compass," "The Chronicles of Narnia," "The Lord of The Rings" and "The Neverending Story" to, of all things, the Dalai Lama parables "Little Buddha" and "Kundun."
Anyone might notice the references to The Wizard of Oz, maybe even those to Wolfgang Petersen’s The NeverEnding Story.
The world of Fantasia contains creatures inspired by Alice in Wonderland (a little man atop a racing snail), " The Muppets " (a cute dragon-dog that can fly), and probably B.C. (a giant made of stone, who snacks on quartz and rumbles around on his granite tricycle).
A Monster Calls is a difficult movie to categorize, looking something like The Iron Giant by way of The NeverEnding Story, but in the end resembling neither.
Monster is akin to '80s family classics that take a child on a quest of identity such as The NeverEnding Story, though Bayona gives his take a realistic and imaginative modern touch.
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To wit: Alice rides on the back of a furry beast—in a style reminiscent of The Neverending Story—not once, not twice, but thrice.
But at its heart it's a simple story, laying out a hero's journey on a mythic quest, and can be seen as a spiritual cousin to films as broad in their appeal as "The NeverEnding Story" or "The Princess Bride."
However, as Martin Scorsese demonstrated in Hugo (2011), those early effects possess a remarkable tangible visual pleasure that deliver a type of cinematic spectacle that digital technologies are yet to truly capture.
Many of the new creatures are a delight – the Porgs are more fun and less cloying than you might fear – while others seems straight out of The Neverending Story.
Despite the flabby mid-section of the film and its menagerie of new alien creatures that are a mixed bag (Yay, Porgs with their squat guinea pig bodies and sad Anime saucer eyes; boo to the others that look like exiles from The Neverending Story), Johnson really delivers with the third and final act.
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Alas, we are not so back. In fact, “Brand New Day” is only a few degrees of fraudulent advertising shy of “The NeverEnding Story.”
For the love of god, I don't want to see another glowing eyeball until I rewatch The NeverEnding Story.