You could sum up my childhood with this movie. I loved it my mother loved it and the characters made my young days worth living. Didn’t get me reading mind you which it probably should of! But there you go. So, way back when I was a wee boy in 1984 this movie was released to fanatical excitement after seeing the adverts. No one warned me about the Gmork that scared the crap out of me back then either. This was produced for around $27m and went on to make $100m at the box-office. This is in fact a West German movie made in English and starring Noah Hathaway, Barret Oliver, Tami Stronach, Patricia Hayes, Sydney Bromley, Gerald McRaney, Moses Gunn, and Alan Oppenheimer well predominantly it was Alan’s voice (he was the Narrator as well as the voices of Gmork and Falkor. This was liked by the critics not well enough to tempt the scoreboard controller from his slumber as IMDb gave it 7.4 out of 10 & Rotten Tomatoes gave it an equal score to me with 80%. The story is a fantasy movie really and may be difficult to run the two themes in one plot.
Ultimately this is a story of a weakling of a book loving boy who steals a book that a book keeper tells him how wonder a story it is he feels compelled to take and read with the promise of returning. The story that he is reading is the main story of the movie that we are watching. In this story many and varying creatures are travelling to the Ivory Tower to ask the Childlike Empress what they can do about the nothingness that is engulfing this land of Fantasia. The nothing is literally nothing, you could describe it as a black cloud but ultimately this is a void of emptiness that is appearing all across the land. We join a few as they reach the palace to speak to her. She is ill and sick which many believe her illness and the nothing is linked somehow. They leaders have summoned a young warrior called Atreyu to be tasked with resolving all the issues of this world and he goes on quest firstly to find Morla the Ancient One who lives in the Swamp of Sadness as it is believed they will have advise that could be used to solve the riddle. Meanwhile a Gmork (giant wolf) creature is chasing him to kill him and prevent him from completing the quest. Atreyu meets Morla who doesn’t give him a great deal of information but suggested they go to the Southern Oracle as this may help them on their quest. On route they bump into a Luck Dragon and various other characters and creatures as the story continues. Meanwhile the young lad reading the story in a hidden room at school has lost track of time and is still at school reading until late into the night. The two stories continue side by side with each young boy facing different challenges to continue their lives.
OK it was really hard not to spoil the plot then but I feel I’ve given you enough information to get you going and not enough to ruin it for you. This is a fantastic film which is probably looking a little dated and grey around the edges. Doesn’t dent my love for this movie which was born when I was so much younger. For a kids movie this has highs and sad lows particularly when Artex the horse sinks into the Swamp of Sadness. The characters and creatures are stunning particularly when you realise how old this movie is but still somehow works. This movie did have a couple of sequels which I am aware of with the potential of more out there that I am not aware of. In the meantime I would recommend you clear your mind of current worries and put this on with a nice warm cup of something and enjoy this movie for the way it was intended for. This tripled its money and this is due to it being a great movie and also being the right movie at the right time. Perfectly timed for me to conclude as I have to dash off but I will finish by saying this has been good to be able to review a lovely kind and loving movie as we near the horror and comedy section of this list and I hope you enjoy this movie as well
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