Wolfgang Petersen

Director of big movies like Das Boot, In the Line of Fire, and Air Force One.

The Neverending Story (1984) -- One time my dad and I started watching this on TV. We got kind of involved in the initial story of this little kid dealing with the death of his mother and his overbearing father. Next thing you know, there are rock-eaters and shit on the screen and my dad turns to me and says, seriously, "Did you turn the channel?" Unfortunately, I had not. I like fantasy movies when they work, but you know you're in trouble when the pre-fantasy part is more interesting than the thing the movie's actually about. Even when the fantasy chugs along okay, it's all eventually ruined at the end when all the bad stuff that happened didn't happen at all (his friends come back to life, etc.) and the magic luck dragon chases down some mean ol' bullies back in normalville. Good-looking characters and cool fantasy world had potential, but most of it was wasted. (George Miller directs the sequel, The Neverending Story II: The Next Chapter.)