These little-known tales are very well written. Unfortunately, someone decided a straight-forward visual style, a la Shelley Duvall's Fairy Tale Theatre, would be boring. Therefore someone felt the stupid need to 'spice things up' with MTV-style visuals and fast cutting. Well, they were very wrong. They merely succeeded in making a group of wonderfully narrated stories (by the always-reliable John Hurt) into some headache-inducing, artsy-fartsy MTV videos without music. Too bad. Likewise, most of the stories feature little-known and mostly talentless actors, chosen more for their physical appearance than any thespian capabilities. There are a few minor exceptions, but for the most part, other than Hurt, there is little or no effort put into the performances. Of course, this may be because the actors were required to perform in a vacuum for the benefit of green-screen visuals. Of course, the Henson 'puppets' are well constructed, but we've seen most of these too many times already for them to be in any way intriguing.
Review of The Storyteller
