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The Colour of Magic
As Rincewind involuntarily becomes a guide to the naive tourist Twoflower, they find themselves forced to flee the city of Ankh-Morpork to escape a terrible fire, and begin on a journey across the Disc. Unknown to them, their journey & fate is being decided by the Gods playing a board game the whole time.
Release : | 2008 |
Rating : | 6.9 |
Studio : | The Mob Film Company, RHI Entertainment, |
Crew : | Writer, Writer, |
Cast : | Christopher Lee Stephen Marcus Brian Cox Sean Astin James Cosmo |
Genre : | Fantasy Comedy TV Movie |
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I cannot think of one single thing that I would change about this film. The acting is incomparable, the directing deft, and the writing poignantly brilliant.
It's a good bad... and worth a popcorn matinée. While it's easy to lament what could have been...
what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.
Actress is magnificent and exudes a hypnotic screen presence in this affecting drama.
I can't say this is a very objective or complete review, since I watched only the first two minutes of Episode 1, which was more than enough to show me that the sound mixing was a horror in itself, as the narration and dialog were unintelligible, lost behind a blasting, over-bearing musical score. Deciding to myself, "what's the point?" I moved on to other things. Might like to see it, but only if they fix the sound track.
Worst adaptation i've ever seen. It was a pain to watch, knowing how amazing the books are. Tries to copy the books word by word but in the meantime it loses the atmosphere, under the bad acting that killed the jokes i laughed hard during reading. But of course it cant copy the book 100% because of the time limit, so it skips complete parts without adjusting the plot in the next scenes. Bad cutting, directing, cheap design.
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.
I don't think other reviews on here have quite captured my feelings on David Jason's performance in this. He made for an excellent Albert in The Hogfather, but that will never in a million years make him Rincewind. I can think of about a million other people they could have cast. Mackenzie Crook from Pirates of the Caribbean and The Office would have been incredible, or the bloke who plays Superhans in Peep Show... why not? Fair enough I guess they wanted a big-name actor, but almost anyone else would have done the trick. What if, say, Eric Idle had done it? I can see that working. Well the point is that I could read off names all day, and I'm sure you can think of a handful more. Instead of all those actors, though, we've got David Jason reciting his lines veeeeeeeeeeery slooooooooowly. Rincewind is not stupid! He's an intelligent, shrewd guy who is made pathetic by his all-consuming cowardice and his utter inability to take a noble stance on any issue. David Jason acting like he's reading lines off an autocue does not cut it.This film is eye-gougingly bad. Tim Curry reprises his usual role from everything he's ever been in and plays a Massive Ham, and the special effects range from acceptable to woeful (some of the bluescreen stuff is appalling, and their attempt at dragons was beyond poor). The plot has been hacked to smithereens, which I expected, but what's less excusable is that the film does occasionally actually contradict the canon established in the books, which is senseless. I'm not even a massive fan of the books, but this film does NOT do them justice. Avoid!