Blistering performances.

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

Mostly, the movie is committed to the value of a good time.

In many ways this Discworld cartoon is perfect -- for example, who else could play Death but Christopher Lee? And the soundtrack, which charts the history of rock n' roll from Elvis, through the beatles and psychodelic rock as 'Music With Rocks In' is introduced to the Discworld, is simply brilliant.But there are times when it just fails to capture the same atmosphere and intelligence that is present in Pratchett's writing. Maybe someday soon a film with be made, after the success of Lord of the Rings, and particularly if the upcoming Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy movie is successful. And cast Christopher Lee as Death!!!

Let's face it; the Discworld novels are rather uneven. The first three are barely worth bothering with. But then, Pratchett produced a novel, Mort, that was dangerously close to literature. Mort went on to be a stage play, and Pratchett went on to write other things. It took four years to get back to the Mort storyline with Reaper Man in 1991, and another three years to continue the story in Soul Music in 1994.Having read all the Discworld books so far, I still think Soul Music is my favorite. Having played in a band myself, I could appreciate the musical in-jokes better than most. Imagine my surprise when a friend mentions casually that Soul Music was an animated feature and he had the DVD. A trade was arranged (one of my Bubblegum Crisis volumes) and I settled down to watch my favorite Discworld novel transformed into a movie.So how was it? Oh, pretty good as a whole. After a stunning CGI opening which takes us on a quick tour of the Discworld, the film settles down to conventional animation with an occasional computer assist. My friend describes the animation as "kinda like squigglevision" (as in Doctor Katz and a couple others) but I have to disagree -- it's much better than that. There are a few places where it was painfully obvious that the animation team was trying to save a few drawings by playing the same clip over and over, but in general, the animation was adequate.The voice talents ranged from excellent to really really bad. Christopher Lee was excellent as Death, as was Debra Gillett as Susan, Death's Granddaughter. The voices of the band (Lias, Glod, and Buddy) were very good. Other voices were adequate, with the exception of the wizards at Unseen University. Yes, I know they were supposed to be petty old men, but why did they have to have the pitch, tonality and speech patterns of Smurfs? It became irritating after awhile. I found myself getting restless whenever the wizards were on the screen, wishing the scene would be over. It's a mystery how such bad choices could co-exist with such good choices.Plotwise, most everything is there. The story was shortened in a few spots, which is reasonable when filming a novel. Sometimes the editing destroyed a joke; for instance, when Nobby and Sgt Colon comment "there she goes -- Susan Death" the joke falls flat for lack of the earlier setup. "Wasn't that death?" "I dunno, it looked more like a Susan." I believe from the description in the book that Pratchett intended the sound of the shop fading and reappearing to be the Dr. Who Tardis sound, but maybe they couldn't get permission to use that.Much of the humor of the novel manages to make it into the film, and it's still funny. I laughed out loud a few times, more out of surprise that a favorite joke was delivered well.All in all, the film has a few flaws but is definitely worth watching. I've just learned that Wyrd Sisters has also been filmed. I can't wait.Now if only they would film Hogfather...

I watched the videos all the way through, and somehow I feel them to be an embarrassment to the books - I found the animation to be a bit crude, and not as I had imagined the scenarios. But of course, it's impossible to make an animated film that's totally accurate, as everyone's view of the Discworld and the characters who people it is entirely different, and nothing could capture the humor in the narrative of DW books. The animated version of Soul Music is something to watch once if you like Terry Pratchett, but I don't think I'll be watching it again. Long live Great A'Tuin!

It is said that no movie may ever surpass the book it was adapted from. It's wrong. Although it is completely incorrect to say that Soul Music, the animated film (or series, depends on how you watch it. :)) is better than the book, because they are two completely different kinds of media, Soul Music managed to capture a deep essense in the book and give it life. The result - a movie filled with humor and fun, with the sort of fiction you can only bring to life with animation. If you see the movie after reading the book, unlike with other book-based movies, you will most certainly not be disappointed, because since Pratchett himself helped direct the movie, he managed to recreate the Discworld down to the tiniest detail just the same way he did in the books.