[The Neverending Story] is a curious piece of work: A fantasy about a small, fat boy who enters into a book he is reading and becomes the hero of a magic quest…. The special effects may jazz things up, but the book, with a new magic creature on almost every page …, is about as lyrical as a German Walt Disney World…. [Periodically] throughout the quest we cut to descriptions of the boy marveling at the evocative writing, or sobbing and blowing his nose when the magic horse dies. This kind of bullying self-promotion only underscores the banality of the novel, as does another intrusion—the boy's muttering "Thank God" or having a stray thought about Jesus. Reminding us of the most powerful story of our age in the middle of a tale about clockwork gnomes is really asking for unfavorable comparisons.

Rhoda Koenig, in a review of "The...