2hotFeature one of my absolute favorites!

ReaderKenka Let's be realistic.

Mjeteconer Just perfect...

Catangro After playing with our expectations, this turns out to be a very different sort of film.

rampallion99 I loved the original so much that I wanted to see the sequel, even though I was 15 when it came out. My dad is fond of clean movies and was glad to take me. It was fairly horrid, for a kid who'd gotten attached to the original at the perfect age. (In 1984 I was 9 to 10, and I was basically any of the 4 boys at the beginning of Stranger Things, which was extra difficult because I'm female.)My dad and I thought it sucked. This was largely because Bastian's main companion in the film is a very poorly executed bird-man. Think crappy Big Bird knockoff who does children's parties. He had a terrible speaking voice, which is now reminiscent of Jar Jar Binks to me. I do not remember Falcor being in the film at all. If he was, they must have spent the entire budget on his 10 seconds of screen time, because the movie looked cheaper than dirt compared to the original. The lack of interesting scenery added to how boring it was.The kid who played Bastian was pretty good. This redeemed nothing, however. The film was too crappy. I would say that today, it can entertain smaller kids, if you want to use it for that. 6 or 7 year olds, at most.

kittydkat I work in the industry, especially with continuity, so I have a GREAT problem whenever ANYONE is re-cast in an established role, be it Victoria in Twilight, or EVERYONE, but the book store owner, in the this movie! Without retaining the same people, we lose the flow of the story. ALL of the main kids are different, Bastian's Father is a different actor, and the voices established in the first movie are all altered from the established ones! Honestly, the only things that tie it to the original is the movie title itself, character names, the book store owner is played by the same Actor, and, LUCKILY, they still have the original Luck Dragon and Rockbitter props.It is not a horrible movie, per say, but all of these changes make it a mere shadow of the glories of the original film. Although the kids do an admirable job in this movie, by not casting all of the original actors, it causes a disconnect, because we are looking at people we do not recognize as, say, Bastian, who is now a blue eyed blond. Then, they have the right Falkor and Rockbitter, but their voices are totally different! I wish this movie would have had ALL the magic of the first movie, but it takes half the film to acknowledge the new actors as the established roles, which, to me, robs the viewer of the full experience. This movie had so much potential!

TheLittleSongbird The original is one of my all time favourite movies, beautifully designed, well acted and had the sense of wonder that enthralled me when I was a child. I saw Neverending Story 3 recently, and thought it was absolute garbage with next to no redeeming qualities. NeverEnding Story 2: The Next Chapter wasn't terrible, but I will admit I was disappointed.The film does look spectacular, with lovely costumes and sets- the image of the silver boats on the river was a beautiful image. The music by Robert Folk was gorgeous, very lyrical and atmospheric. And I did think Xayide was a pretty good villainess and Clarissa Burt was superb playing her, and that Ken Morrison did a worthy job replacing Noah Hathaway as Atreyu. I do admit Hathaway was better, he was born to play the part. Falcor wasn't too bad either, if not as wise as he was in the original movie.There are flaws however. The plot is disjointed, and there are a lot of unfocused moments in the screenplay. Also that big bird was really irritating. Not to mention some contradictions in comparison to the original, then again NeverEnding Story 3 had a lot more contradictions, and did do an even worse job than this film. Barrett Oliver as Bastian was great in the original, and I do appreciate that they made him older and wiser here, but I did think as the hero Jonathan Brandis was rather feeble, but he did try his best with superficial material.Overall, disappointing, but it wasn't that bad. If anything I think it is average, so I will give it a 5/10. Bethany Cox

Tanakara_Sai I, like many others, watched The Never Ending Story as a child and of course loved it, I remembered the characters, the basis of the plot and the lesson. I'm fairly certain I watched the sequels but of them I remembered nothing.Recently, I was using time before an appointment and I came across both The Never Ending Story and The Never Ending Story two for just ten dollars, obviously I could not pass up a chance to upgrade my beloved story to DVD, just in case my VHS died.I digress, so I recently watched them back to back. Aside from replacing all but one of the original actors there didn't seem to be any development from the last story. I expected Bastion to be older physically, but I had also expected him to grow up. He was still the same shy kid but he was dumber. His father some how found a potion to make himself ten years younger then he had been and despite seeming to open up, Bastion still had no friends and couldn't even think about his mother without getting teary. I know, I know, losing someone is always hard, especially a parent, but he was suppose to have moved on in the first movie after he gave the empress a new name. On that topic, may I ask why she seemed to be nameless again in this story?The new actors were... Painfully bad, every action and line seemed over acted to the amount of just being a farce. I never read the book so I have to judge the piece for theatrical value and this has very little. The effects are passable but very little of the story seemed to flow.So to boil it down, Bastion never really grew up, he was just replaced with an older actor, Atreyu, as far as I'm concerned, became a less lovable character. He seemed to lose the smooth, truly native American beauty he had and just became a rough looking sort without the same natural fire and independence.Over all the movie was an eyesore, leave it be and just watch the first.