How I learned to stop worrying and like (but not love) 'Labyrinth'

There is a pretty devoted fanbase for the Jim Henson film Labyrinth. There are some who are drawn to the movie because of its feature role for the late rock and fashion icon David Bowie. Others fell in love with the movie as a child and never stopped clinging to it as a masterpiece.

I saw the movie once years ago --mostly intrigued because of Bowie -- and took an almost instant dislike to it. This was in part because I have always had a pretty strong aversion to fantasy films, and for me, the film just didn't live up to all the hype.

But I've always meant to revisit it -- and after I saw a terrific Henson exhibit at the Museum of the Moving Image I decided it was time to rewatch this tale of goblins and babes.

After a second viewing, I can safely say I don't love the movie but I definitely have grown to like it. And, it's easy to see why it appeals to kids of the 80s (of which I barely was one).

Kids films back then were seemingly interested in walking a fine line between enlightening and frightening children. And Henson's film veers wildly in tone from musical to horror show to fairy tale without much nuance.

It's message -- about accepting that life is unfair -- is a good one, but its buried in a narrative that feels both incredibly thin (Jennifer Connolly -- in a very extra performance -- plays a girl who wishes her baby brother would disappear and comes to regret it) and needlessly cluttered.

Some of Henson's visual set pieces are wonderful, and, as always, his puppets are enchanting and fully realized. But there is not much grounding the movie emotionally. That said, Bowie does make a striking and charismatic screen presence as Jareth the so-called Goblin King-- and the movie is occasionally aided comedically by the work of Monty Python alum Terry Jones on the screenplay.

Jones' influence pops up now and again with funny bits of business involving some of the side characters that Connolly encounters during her frequently tedious journey to retrieve her stolen brother. But apparently his impact on the movie's screenplay was diminished by multiple re-writes.

So the finished product, for better of worse, is more a reflection of Henson's unique gifts and perhaps his limitations as a filmmaker. While the visual palette of the film is fun and engaging, and clearly Henson put in a lot of attention to detail, the human element of the movie is lacking and under-developed from the get-go.

And yet, it has ample charm, some genuine laughs and value as a piece of nostalgia.

The film's financial failure and relative critical drubbing is said to have deeply wounded Henson and he never directed another original film before his death in 1990. He'd be pleased to know that this film has become a bonafide cult classic in the last thirty years and is legacy has only continued to grow.