The Neverending Story 2: The Next Chapter (1991)

Fiction_Fox on 11/11/2013 Reply  ·  Like  ·  (0 likes)

Spoiler alerts in here probably. I actually enjoyed this sequel a lot. This Bastian is very relate-able and the conflict in Fantasia seemed like a natural next step, being basically the same issue as the first film but with different consequences in both worlds. I felt the magic and grandeur of the first film was generally retained here, and the impressive quality and scale of all the puppets was about the same. I found the events in the real world equally enjoyable to the main story, with the following of Bastian's dad as he scrambles around trying to find his son and eventually cheering him on when finding the book. The great involvement of the father in this story is probably the biggest positive attribute this film brought to the table. The memory loss portion of the story...eh...could have been better. It seemed to have no effect on him remembering the world of Fantasia, and it had no noticeable effects on Bastian at all until the very end of the process. Then when the main villain is dealt with, he just "magically" has all his memories again and without explanation. The idea itself was good, but they could have done more to expand on it. Overall though, I might have liked this one a bit more than the first. I'll have to watch the first again to be sure before going around and toting that statement, though.

Fiction_Fox on 11/11/2013 Reply  ·  Like  ·  (0 likes)

And by the way, is it SO HARD for them to just call her the empress instead of the CHILD-LIKE empress? That got rather annoying as the film went on.