THE DARK CRYSTAL **** (out of four) "Another world, Another time... In the age of wonder."
-a review by Bill Chambers (Shampoo + conditioner in ONE website! Film Freak Central- http://www.geocities.com/Hollywood/Set/7504 Check out my idiotic film journal, and don't forget to recommend a movie in the 'Can't Miss' section.)
screenplay by David Odell directed by Jim Henson & Frank Oz
When Jim Henson passed away, he left behind diverse legions of fans and a company whose ultimate success, it now seems, hinged on his input. Jim Henson Productions and The Creature Shop are still thriving financially, but as the last two Muppet films (or that silly computer-generated monkey from Lost In Space) demonstrate, the thrill and genius are gone. I'm not sure THE DARK CRYSTAL, made today, would generate from an audience of kids five to fifty the same awe-filled response.
An all-powerful crystal has cracked, causing the leaders of the green world to split apart into two beings: the big, gentle Mystics, and the vulture-like Skeksis. The Mystics send Jen, a naive Gelfling boy, on a mission to find the shard that cracked away, which must be reinserted into the crystal before the Skeksis become eternal rulers, before the great "conjunction" of three suns. Along the way, Jen encounters and teams up with the only other Gelfling alive, the Rebecca DeMornay-like Kira, an ogre-witch named Aughra, who removes her eyes to look at things, and a spastic-but-friendly, tumbleweed-like animal named Fizzgig.
Much of the beauty in THE DARK CRYSTAL, which is a simple tale (though it does not condescend to any viewer), lies in its art direction and creature design. The puppeteering is phenomenal--observe the scenes in which Jen plays his flute, or the landwalker chase--but I must stress that any thoughts of strings and hands and remote controls all but vanish in the opening moments of the picture, a delicately-narrated (by John Baddeley), absorbing prologue. The voice work in the film, by Muppet regulars and irregulars, is tone-perfect. As well, Trevor Jones' score should not be discounted: it contributes to the film almost as an unseen character. I suppose, due to the complexity involved in executing a movie of this nature, that it couldn't be helped, but I wish the film was longer. Jen and Kira have wonderful...well, chemistry, and more scenes of them quietly conversing would have been appreciated.
THE DARK CRYSTAL has a very small cult following. The weaker Labyrinth is probably better-known, which is upsetting. A friend of mine related a story to me that Henson was pressured into planting humans among Labyrinth's creatures due to the financial failure of people-less THE DARK CRYSTAL. That film never quite found its footing; it played like an acid-trip episode of "The Muppet Show" with David Bowie as guest-host, borrowing from Tolkien and pandering to Tolkien's fan-base. (I suppose I just made Labyrinth sound appetizing to a certain sector of the public.) THE DARK CRYSTAL deserved (and still deserves) a bigger audience. It's the best kind of children's entertainment: elegant, fantastical, and courageously un-hip. Brian Henson, fortunate son, keep looking back at this, your father's masterpiece.
-May, 1998.
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