Awesome Movie

In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.

I really wanted to like this movie. I feel terribly cynical trashing it, and that's why I'm giving it a middling 5. Actually, I'm giving it a 5 because there were some superb performances.

It's a good bad... and worth a popcorn matinée. While it's easy to lament what could have been...

This movie has the best story of all times.If you like adventure, magic, fantastic beasts, look no further.If you liked the Lord of the Ring, Therabitia or even Harry Potter, this film is made for you.Lot of magic, lot of suspense, lot of adventure, and some humor too.This is a GREAT movie.Watch it with the whole family (yes, including grandma and children).They will all love it.It's a wonderful tale.Magic, dragons, wizards...

I must admit that I was quite excited when I was wondering through the video shop to discover that they had made a live-action version of Terry Pratchett's original discworld novels (this movie covers the first two books, Colour of Magic and Light Fantastic). I believe that I have seen an animated version but I thought it was cool to see them actually turn the books into a telemovie. I guess it was going to happen sooner rather than later considering the popularity of the Discworld Novels, and after the popularity of Lord of the Rings, Hollywood has been attempting, on numerous occasions, to replicate the success.Discworld, I will have to admit, is one of the more original novels that have appeared since the phenomenal success of Lord of the Rings, and I suspect that their success is not only due to Pratchett's writing style, but also because it is quite amusing. I tend to call Discworld the Hitchhikers Guide for fantasy worlds. The plot itself is not very original as it involves a quest and saving the world, but the world itself and the characters, once again while not strictly original, still stand apart from the typical fantasy novels.It is the characters that I will be looking at here, beginning with Rincewind. Now Rincewind is a wizard that has pretty much failed wizardry. He is like one of those perpetual students that has never successfully completed a university course and has thus spent the rest of his life trying, and failing, to get out of university. The reason is because, as a dare, he opened a powerful spellbook (which contains the eight spells that hold Discworld together) and one of the spells leap from the book into his head, and ever since he has never been able to master magic (because the spell in his head simply does not give him enough space to learn any more spells. Further, Rincewind is not a hero, he is a coward, and spends his time trying to escape from danger only to find himself slap bang in the middle of it. He is not a man with a goal or a quest beyond simply surviving. In subsequent books (and not all of the Discworld novels are based around Rincewind) he is no different, but I digress.Next we have Twoflower. He is a tourist who has traveled from the legendary continent of gold to visit Anhk Morpork simply to look around. This, like the rest of Discworld, is poking fun at aspects of our culture using Discworld as the vehicle of comment. One might think it strange that somebody would travel halfway across the world simply to look at something, but we have a whole industry devoted to this. However, personally, until you have done it, one really does not understand the nature of tourism. Granted people did not do thus until at least the 18th Century, and even then travel was slow and people never traveled far for any reason beyond business or war. With industrialisation, and the increase in the speed of travel, things changed, however, prior to that, if somebody where to travel half way around the world, they generally did not return.One wonders if Twoflower is supposed to be Japanese or American. I always envisaged him as American, but I read somewhere that he was supposed to be Japanese, which is not surprising since back when the book was writing people all saw the Japanese as being perennial tourists. In fact it seemed at the time that Australia rode on the Japanese Tourist's back. Things have changed since Japan's time in the economic sun is over, but now we are seeing them replaced by Chinese tourists. Personally, I like traveling halfway around the world to look at stuff, but to me there is a lot more to looking at stuff than simply looking at it and saying 'gee, isn't that beautiful'.There are a number of other characters as well, such as Cohen the Barbarian. No guesses as to who this is supposed to be, though it should be noted that he is actually very old. Despite his age, he is still a very, very effective fighter. Out of all of the characters I liked Cohen the best, simply because he is pretty much unique. Who has ever heard of the hero of a fantasy novel being a geriatric barbarian who does not know when it is time to retire. Finally there is the luggage. Normally suitcases are background props, but not in Terry Pratchett. The luggage is not a prop but a character in its own right, and a psychotic and uncontrollable one at that. He also has developed a strong attachment to Rincewind, much to the laters horror.Look, I liked this film, I thought is was done quite well, and while there may be questions as to how faithful it is to the original books, I personally thought they could have done a lot worse. Rincewind's character was portrayed well, and while I was not what I had conjured in my head (I thought he was a lot younger) it did make a lot of sense. It is funny that watching films like this make me want to go back to reading these books again, though I must admit that I have a lot of other books on my shelf that have a higher priority than a re-read of a Terry Pratchett novel.

One thing I don't understand. Pratchett wrote quite a lot of Discworld novels, and some of them are simply begging to be put on the big screen. Most of the "Watch" novels for example. "Small Gods" as another. However, when Pratchett actually gets on the big (ok, small) screen, they seem to make the worst choices possible. First it was the "Hogfather", which is probably one of the most esoteric and confusing Discworld novels out there. Now they take the very first Discworld novels which - while perhaps being the funniest in the series - do not really present what Pratchett's work is all about. These early two novels are basically Terry taking a jab at (but also making homage) to a fantasy genre in general. Well, perhaps the entire Discworld series is like that, but in "Color of Magic" and "The light fantastic" this parody takes the front seat while a coherent story and characters sit in the back. And this works well in written form, but as a cinematic narrative it simply fails; clever jokes get cut, simplified and/or drowned in the overall chaos, the plot has to move quickly so it is nearly impossible to absorb everything that happens (let alone enjoy it) and overall it represents a rather frustrating experience, both for the Pratchett fans as well as the general audience.The first thing that bothered me is the casting. Sean Austin is a fine Twoflower, even though I think it perhaps should have been cast by a more exotic-looking actor. David Jason, sadly, is a complete miss as Rincewind. This particularly bothers me since David is probably my favorite British actor; however he is just too likable to pull of a Rincewind. Someone like Rowan Atkinson channeling his Black Adder persona (but with less malice and much more cowardice) would be perfect. The thing is, you need to take pleasure in Rincewind constantly being put from one peril to the next; David's Rincewind is like a kooky old grandpa that you feel bad for when he gets thrown from a cliff, threatened or trampled on. And whenever he does something Rincewind-y (like taking off with Twoflower's gold), it actually feels out of character.The rest of the cast is hit-or-miss. Death is horribly puppet-like - I endured him in Hogfather but here the rubber skull should really have been lees pronounced. Vetinari is on par (even though in those early Discworld novels he most probably wasn't the "Patrician", but that's fan service for you). Tim Curry overplays Trymon to the extreme, but I guess this is due to the bad direction - many characters seem to be overacting their bits probably to infuse a sense of lightness and silliness. Just check out the faces leader of the Krull makes while doing his speech; inexcusable.However the biggest culprit is the plot. It is just too hectic, too chaotic and doesn't let the characters to develop or even establish themselves. This perhaps has a lot to with with (un)necessary exposition given by both the narrator and the characters - the plot hardly gets a chance to move along before the next bit of exposition has to get its turn.It's not all bad however. There are some superb actors involved in this, the sets and effect look fantastic (especially for a TV movie). And even though I said Jason makes a bad Rincewind, it still is a joy to watch this fine actor doing his schtick. And it IS Pratchett, after all.So I guess that bottom line I can give this a passing grade, but it's still a deeply disappointing venture. I hope they do "Guards! Guards!" next, and I hope they do it good.

Forget the "disjointed themes and story lines" and forget the apologia for them. Pratchett fans can't help but be bored silly by this and I don't see how non-fans over the age of 10 could be entertained. Where Pratchett's writing is crisp, clever and witty this movie is pedantic, stupid and dull. Yes, Vadim Jean did an excellent job of deciding what to keep and what to dispense with in translating the books into a screenplay. Some of the dialogue is even cleverly delivered. But that isn't enough.The early Discworld novels barely have anything you could call a plot. They are just "one thing happening after another" until you either get to something that feels like a resolution or it feels like a good place to stop. Instead of being plot-driven, they are pun-driven. Some of the original puns depend on being read, but most of them can be visualized, or at least replaced with the visual version, which is slap-stick. Virtually every time anyone says anything in this movie there is either a pause for effect (ruining the pacing) or something else steps on the line (ruining the delivery). And there is no slap-stick at all - when something happens, it's practically in slow motion, presumably so the under 10-year-olds don't miss it. But even Pratchett's stories written for children (which these weren't) do not presume the level of idiocy in their audience that this movie does.The joy of a Discworld novel is not just in the obvious puns, allusions, metaphors, humorous references and other "plays on words" that he uses, it's in discovering the hidden ones that make you feel really pleased with yourself for having noticed. This is the man who introduced the character "Carrot" in book #7 and had someone "look at (him) in a new way and start a revolution" in book _fifteen_. If you're not familiar with your French philosophers and don't have the luck to find the quote on a calendar (as I did) then you won't recognize the reference. But what kind of a convoluted mind writes six books in between the set up and delivery of a pun? Let alone such an obscure one? Terry Pratchett, and no one else.But aside from having no intelligence, the movie lacks another vital Discworld element: character. In the novels, Rincewind is practically an athlete (from all that running) and is probably in his early thirties - it _wasn't_ that long ago that, as an undergrad of normal age, he took that dare he shouldn't have. In the movie the character doesn't run because the actor can't. He's too old. And most of the Rincewind humour is dependent on the running! His lines are nearly always thrown over his shoulder. Twoflower, on the other hand, is at least as badly cast. He comes from the Agatean Empire, which on the "world and mirror of worlds" that is the Discworld reflects all the metaphors, clichés and prejudices that the west (particularly England) has for the east - particularly China and Japan. Um, don't you think you could have cast an Asian? Or are we still back in the days when whites played all roles, no matter how ill-suited they are to them? This character doesn't even come off as a good tourist! Instead he looks and acts like a 5 year old who's trying to pretend he's stupid.What's really frustrating is that all of these actors are really, really good at their job. This just isn't a job that should have been given to these particular actors. Tim Curry, for example does his absolute best with his lines and his character (and his best is very, very good), but the pacing messes him up so badly that he can't even make you snicker. Talk about wasted effort! It's almost enough to make you cry.Vadim Jean's other effort, The Hogfather, is a much better watch because he got the casting right - or at least, right enough. But the pacing is just as bad. It's as if someone were reading the novel aloud to you, with a stammer and pausing for a full second after each line.It could have been so much better.