The Carrying On of A Wayward Son

Labyrinth (1986)

Rotten Tomatoes Score: 59 out of 100

Metacritic Score: 50 out of 100

IMDB Score: 7.3 out of 10

I would never have considered “Labyrinth” a bad film. A tad cheesy? Of course! It has Muppets. A bit unoriginal? Why not? Some wooden acting from Jennifer Connelly? Her beauty more then makes up for any shortcomings she had as an actor in 1986.

You remind me of the babe. What babe? The babe with the power. What power? The power of voodoo. Who do? You Do. Do What? Remind me of the babe.

“Labyrinth” may not have been a perfect film but it was far from a bad film, either. In fact, I thought it was pretty great.

Apparently, critics don’t agree with me. Oh well!

In the end, I was thankful for getting the chance to watch a cherished film — a nice break from the choo-choo train of crappy movies I’ve been subjecting myself to for the last couple of months.

Deciding to mix things up for a film I had seen dozens of time over the last twenty-plus years, I went to the special screening of “Labyrinth” hosted by the Alamo Drafthouse.

Shuttle Debris, an electronic band from Austin, provided a live soundtrack for the movie. Whenever one of film’s musical numbers would happen, the movie’s sound was turned down and Shuttle Debris took over the musical reigns.

I must admit, though, I was a little disappointed with the presentation.

When I first heard about the screening, I imagined a live band with guitars, drums and at least a tambourine. Instead Shuttle Debris consisted of two guys — one with a Mac and a keyboard and another with a microphone and a somewhat decent singing voice.

It was essentially “Labyrinth”-karaoke.

In retrospect, it shouldn’t have been much of a surprise that the presentation failed to live up to my expectations. David Bowie’s music was one of the most memorable aspects of the Jim Henson-directed fantasy film about a spoiled teenage girl who accidently gives her baby brother to the Goblin King.

By taking away the power of The Bowie, Shuttle Debris took a big chance. If they had been able to provide a new spin on the tunes and give the audience some remarkably different and exciting cover versions, it might have worked. Unfortunately, Shuttle Debris didn’t have the cajones to pull it off.

With the exception of the song “Chilly Down,” which the band did provide a fresh approach to with its cover, most of the songs were simply electronic whispery-vocal versions of the Bowie tunes.

Despite my disappointment with Shuttle Debris’ accompaniment of the movie, I was still able to enjoy “Labyrinth” just as much as I did when I first saw the film as a small child.

With all the attention being strewn on computer-generated characters, it’s nice to sit back and enjoy a good puppet movie every now and then.

Besides the appeal of simple nostalgia, though, “Labyrinth” is also a great source for life lessons. For example, never make idol wishes about having goblins take away your baby brother. Apparently those little boogers have big ears.

The biggest lesson I learned, though, came from one scene in the film in which Connelly’s character Sarah finds herself in a junkyard. Under the spell of a tainted piece of fruit, Sarah is almost swayed into forgetting her quest to rescue her baby brother with the appeal of being reunited with all her favorite childhood toys.

Sarah’s temptress is a disgusting little goblin weighed down by nostalgia, literally represented by a giant hump of trash-turned-treasures. Metaphorically, this hump represents the goblin’s incessant need to carry around its own personal baggage.

As the goblin reunites Sarah with childhood toy after childhood toy, it begins to pile the memories on Sarah’s back, creating her own misshapen hump of nostalgia — the threat being that unless Sarah can snap out of it she will gradually become just another goblin shuffling through the junkyard wasteland concerned only with hoarding her personal possessions like a living, breathing curio shop.

Watching this scene, I was reminded of why I began this year of bad movies in the first place. Part of the reason I had for starting this journey was due to the fact that I could no longer enjoy the movies I once did as a child.

At first, I chalked it up to the fact that I was being transformed into a movie snob and was loosing touch with what made me a movie fan to begin with.

Now, though, I’m beginning to wonder if my desperate attempt to hoard onto these childhood movies has the potential to turn me into a junk-goblin, shuffling around under the weight of my own reluctance to grow up and accept change in my taste in movies.

Is my enjoyment of “Labyrinth” due to the fact that it is a genuinely good movie or does it have more to do with nostalgia and a reluctance to give up on the things I loved as a child?

Things to think about.