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    The Dark Crystal

    Reviewed by
    adamwatchesmovies@

    I remember the first time I heard someone tell me that “The Dark Crystal” wasn’t that great of a film and I thought that they were insane. Now that I’ve re-watched the film with adult sensibilities, I understand where they came from. It’s more of an interesting experiment than it is a genuinely good movie, which is a real shame because it could have been so good. The first thing you need to know is that there are no a visible actors in this film. Every character is an original creation brought to life through the use of puppets or costumes, so the look is quite distinct.

    The story follows the elf-like Jen (voiced by Kiran Shah), a Gelfling. He lives in a world ruled by a cabal of evil creatures called Skeksis, bird-like, greedy aristocrats. Their counterparts are the wise, but not particularly proactive Mystics, who raised Jen after he was orphaned by the shock troops of the Skeksis. Jen is given the task of restoring balance to his world, which can only be done by reuniting the missing shard of the Dark Crystal.

    I need to clarify what I mean when I say that the film is more of an interesting experiment than a successful one. I like what directors Frank Oz and Jim Henson were trying to do here. A fantasy film so far removed from our reality that none of the creatures are human. I like that, it sounds cool. It brings a certain level of realism to this world. You feel like anything could happen because you haven’t seen anything like it before. I was particularly impressed with the many scenes where we see Jen, and the people he gathers with him on his quest traveling through forests. Because every tree is artificial, I never knew if one of them was suddenly going to turn out to be a carnivorous creature disguising itself as a tree, or what kind of weird creature was going to pop out. The puppeteers and artists involved in the film have done an amazing job. The world they have built feels like a real one, filled with hundreds of different, and unique life forms.

    The problem I have with the end results is that there really isn’t any reason why this movie is made without the use of live-action actors. Actually, I think it really could have used a few real-life people in the movie, if only for the Gelflings. Most of the creatures in this movie do not look human at all. But Jen does. Unfortunately, his face is made of plastic; he looks like a puppet. He doesn’t break free from the bonds of puppetry because his face isn’t very expressive and unlike a weird bird creature, you can tell that he doesn’t emote or feel as lively when he talks. This really hinders the film because frankly, the characters in this movie are not very exciting at all. Jen has absolutely no personality and is not a proactive hero. He is simply told by a variety of creatures where he needs to go next, what he needs to do and why. He never takes any initiative on his own so he doesn’t feel, or look real.

    Another problem I have is that this story takes numerous shortcuts and frequently breaks the most important rule of film making: show, don’t tell. The movie begins with a long narration about what the world is like. That’s fine. The place we’re going to is complex and very alien. Then, we hear the internal dialogue of Jen telling us that he was orphaned and raised by the Mystics. It’s too bad we couldn’t just see that, but maybe that’s too traumatic for the audience and if you’re going to set up some exposition to the audience in a narrative way, you might as well do it at the beginning. But throughout the film, we have internal dialogue or characters just talking to each other, explaining to the audience what happened off-screen or why things are happening a certain way. I say you cut out some of the less interesting sub-plots and show us! I spotted numerous shortcuts throughout, like two characters getting to know each other not by conversation or going on adventures together, but by touching each other and instantly transferring memories. I guess it’s supposedly to be some of the mysticism of this world being shown to us, but to me it just felt like lazy storytelling. There’s no logic as to what the characters do and don’t learn from each other in this exchange. Jen is constantly surprised by some of his allies’ skills and I kept wondering to myself why he didn’t already know all of these things. Isn’t that what the purpose of that Vulcan-style mind meld was for? To tell you everything you needed to know about the other person?

    I don’t think “The Dark Crystal” is a bad movie. It looks great and I can see a lot of people enjoying it, but the writing is weak. If you look at some of the other films where Jim Henson and his crew are involved in, you can see that they are filled with just as much imagination, and with characters that are both memorable and distinct characters. Nothing like the blank slates found here. I don’t blame you if you like “The Dark Crystal”, but it’s not the masterpiece it’s been branded as being. I will give it another shot though, so stay tuned on an updated review. (On DVD, December 26, 2014)

    5
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    adamwatchesmovies@  4.2.2016 age: 26-35 2,867 reviews

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