The NeverEnding Story III 4K 1994

For me, the 1984 film The Neverending Story, based on the book by German author Michael Ende, is the best family film of all time. It has an excellent script, interesting characters, an amazing atmosphere, and a drama that touches the soul. Six years later, a sequel was released—The Neverending Story 2. My goodness, it was terrible. The film had nothing in common with the original and was more reminiscent of cheap American comedies of the 80s and 90s. The impression this film left was comparable to being punched in the stomach. Then, some time later, The NeverEnding Story 3 was released, which had nothing to do with the book and was based on an original script. How can the impression of watching this film be compared? I would say it was like being kicked in the groin with an iron knight's boot.

The first thing we see during the credits is computer animation from Fantasia. Of course, I understand that it's silly to complain about computer graphics at that time, but that doesn't change anything. Remember the first film. What did the country consist of? Beautiful landscapes. Mountains, rivers, forests, the sea coast. In this film, the animated ice makes your eyes hurt faster than wearing red and blue 3D glasses. And that's just the beginning.

Of course, there is not a single actor from the original in the film. Bastian, his father, the librarian, and the empress are played by completely different people. The acting is not very impressive. Bastian's stepmother did the worst job with her role. Such acting speaks of something that should not exist. The only one who tries in this film is Jack Black. It's not that he does it well, it's just quite funny to watch him try.

What they did to the characters in the film is unforgivable. The villains of the series have deteriorated. In the first film, the main villain is a cataclysm called Nothing. In the second, the main villain is Emptiness, a dying imagination in the form of a girl. In this film, the main villains are a group of hooligans led by Jack Black. What about the familiar characters? The noble dragon of luck, Falcor, who in the first film reminded me of Draco from “The Heart of the Dragon,” now looks like a complete idiot and is more reminiscent of Patrick from “SpongeBob SquarePants.” However, this is not the only original character that the creators have almost destroyed. The second is Stone. Not only does he bear no resemblance to Stone from the first two films, but his story has been turned into some kind of sitcom, like Full House. The plot of the film is empty and uninteresting. Apparently, the lack of connection to the book had a significant impact.

It's time to sum up. An uninteresting plot, poor acting, a complete change of the original characters, and bland villains. This is definitely one of the worst sequels I've seen in my life. The worst thing is that this nonsense is called The Neverending Story.