Pacionsbo Absolutely Fantastic

Donald Seymour This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

Deanna There are moments in this movie where the great movie it could've been peek out... They're fleeting, here, but they're worth savoring, and they happen often enough to make it worth your while.

Dana An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

Sayasam 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...

phonenumberofthebeast Vadim Jean's second adaptation of Terry Pratchett's longrunning Discworld series of comedic fantasy novels cannot compare to the first, though it is not really his fault. The series adapts Pratchtt's first two novels, The Colour of Magic and The Light Fantastic, which together form a loose single narrative. Set on a typical fantasy realm, replete with trolls, dwarfs and demons, they are, effectively, a parody of the hero's quest, in that the hero, an untalented "wizzard" named Rincewind, has no intention either of being heroic or of going on a quest but ends up fighting monsters, riding dragons and trying to save the world anyway. He is assisted by his "sidekick" Twoflower, who seems only dimply aware that he isn't on a packaged holiday. And that, without mentioning specifics, is the entire plot. Along the way, several fantasy (or perhaps D&D) conventions, such as talking swords, scantily-clad, Heavy Metal-style warrior women, and raging loin-clothed barbarians, are duly referenced and lambasted.After the relative success of Hogfather in 2006, Vadim Jean decided to take the series in a surprising direction: backwards. Correctly in my view, he chose perhaps the archetypal novel in Pratchett's canon to adapt first. Hogfather was Pratchett at his absolute height, mixing adventure with philosophical commentary and existential humour, the most mature expression of such Discworldly themes of imagination vs. reality, the power of myth vs rationality, and the dichotomy of "the falling angel and the rising ape". "The Colour of Magic" and "The Light Fantastic" were written 25 years ago, when Pratchett was still finding his feet as a writer. As such, they lack some of the sophistication one comes to expect from the series. The books' humour, which would eventually become character and situation-driven, here operates on the level of broad parody, lampooning the absurdities of many fantasy and fairy tale conventions. The characterisation, which would become far more complex in later novels, is as broad as a wall, with Twofower the naive Asian tourist and Rincewind the cowardly non-hero. In a move that was either very wise or bewilderingly silly, Jean decided to cast Sean Astin as Twoflower, even though in the books he is East Asian in appearance. Perhaps this was done to lessen the racial stereotype, but if so, that doesn't reflect well on the source material. His decision to cast the elderly David Jason as Rincewind, who in the books is a youngish man with a scraggly attempt at a beard, is less explicable, other than Jean was simply grateful that Jason wanted to do another series with him.But if the plot is slight, the actors certainly give it their all. Astin plays Twoflower with just the right kind of naivete, while Jason, though miscast, creates a Rincewind that is suitably cynical and craven. For Pratchett fans, a number of pleasing retcons have been incorporated: The Librarian becomes an orangutan much earlier; Death is now his fully-evolved, pleasantly bemused self, and the Patrician is unquestionably Vetinari, here played by Jeremy Irons- a nod to Pratchett saying that a good actor for Vetinari would be "that guy from Die Hard", ie Alan Rickman.In summary, I think Pratchett fans will find pleasure in it, but others should probably stay away.

ohgeebear1 I had been waiting to see The Colour of Magic since they announced it. I couldn't be happier...Jeremy Irons as the Patrician was what I imagined. Although I wondered about his choice of accent. And while I had expected Rincewind to be younger, David Jason's face is so wonderfully expressive, that I didn't care. Tim Curry's Trymon was typical to his villains and David Bradley as the Hero, wonderful..In order to have made this any better for me, they would have had to make a mini series of 4 nights at least..I believe that even non-Pratchet readers can still get the bulk of the humour, and it is close enough to the books that the most rabid fan will not object.

rokcomx Mr. Pratchett's books tend to be a bit nudge-nudge/wink-wink for my tastes. A little bit of Hitchhiker's Guide humor (or should that be humour?) goes a long way for us far less punny Yanks. So I've never read the book(s) that spawned this nearly 4-hour TV movie (seen last week on the ION Network in the U.S.).I didn't read the IMDb comments until after viewing, but I had the same bipolar "This is great" feeling during some scenes, and "This really sux" disdain during others. The cheesy budget constraints are a frequent stumbling block, as is the British tendency to keep speeding up scenes to fast-motion ala Benny Hill/Goodies/Python/BadNews/YoungOnes/etc. Poor substitute for genuine chuckles, which should have been aplenty, given the ludicrousness of the fantasy genre – An earlier comment mentions deviations from the book that "didn't make sense," but I disagree with most of the incidents he mentions. For instance, when the walking wardrobe (nice visual, but usually sped up like a Benny Hill chase-scene) seeks out Cohen the Barbarian to help his master, I just assumed the wardrobe – described as "fiercely protective of its owner" – recognized it needed heroic help to get Frodo's pal --- I mean the Worst Wizard's pal – out of his increasingly dangerous predicaments.And I certainly don't think we needed any more pit stops along the road to the distant finale, no matter how entertaining or troll-filled those pitsops may have been in the books.Tim Curry chews up all his scenes, and even seems to be paying tribute to (or gently mocking) several past roles with several sly bits of dialogue and inflection that harken back to Legend, Times Square, Annie, Spamalot, the Shout, and even Rocky and a couple of his cartoon villains.I didn't know Christopher Lee was Death until after viewing but, wow, his scenes were among the best! I loved how he just pops up out of nowhere whenever someone's life is on the line, seemingly caught in the middle of whatever he was doing at the time and becoming increasing bitter that his sharpened scythe is only scooping up uncredited extras and no marquee stars. You can tell much of what little budget there was went into tinting and partly animating his sequences, each of them terrific. I actually laughed aloud when our intrepid Tourist said, on the reaper's own monochromatic porchstep, "How often does one get to be at Death's door?" So the movie seems to be a low-budget but fairly accurate TV transcription of Pratchett's usual entry-level teen fiction take on the fantasy genre. Yeah, it's boneheaded at times, but at least the low common denominator it aims for is usually a funny denominator. To paraphrase the late Don Thompson, If you LIKE that sort of thing, this is that sort of thing.