A classic

What happened to Wolfgang Petersen? Is he in semi-retirement? His last movie was 'Poseidon', a huge bomb, but since then, he hasn't done much. Anyway, even if you may not like most of his output, you can't argue that Petersen was one of the most successful European directors in Hollywood. Before starting a career in the US, he made two of the most impressive European productions, 'Das Boot' and 'The NeverEnding Story'. 'The NeverEnding Story' is one of those movies that I saw when I was very young and, back then, I thought it was just fascinating, probably the best fantasy story I saw at the time. In my young eyes, it looked great, it was a mesmerizing world, it was a great adventure with also some scary moments and the fact that a young kid like me was reading a book, living this adventure was also something that really intrigued me at the time. Seriously, with its various levels of story-telling, it is basically a mind-f*ck for kids. Of course, when the time was right, I had to re-watch this flick with my kids but, unfortunately, most of the magic was gone. I mean, I still thoroughly enjoyed it, absolutely, but I thought it looked pretty cheesy (30 years later, what would you expect?) and the weaknesses in the story or the acting were much obvious this time around. In my opinion, to really enjoy this flick, you have to be really young, at least 6 years but no more than 12, and you still need to have some kind of innocent soul to be touched by its magic. To conclude, I still think it is a classic, I really cherish this flick and it is definitely worth a look, especially if you like the genre.

7/10