Platicsco Good story, Not enough for a whole film

Lidia Draper Great example of an old-fashioned, pure-at-heart escapist event movie that doesn't pretend to be anything that it's not and has boat loads of fun being its own ludicrous self.

Abegail Noëlle While it is a pity that the story wasn't told with more visual finesse, this is trivial compared to our real-world problems. It takes a good movie to put that into perspective.

Aspen Orson There is definitely an excellent idea hidden in the background of the film. Unfortunately, it's difficult to find it.

Robert Murray Our family loved this movie. We have seen both Hogfather and The Color of Magic. Both are excellent movies. The Color of Magic has some slow spots, but the ending is wonderful and worth the time spent. The characters develop very well. For the most part the acting is very good and the special effects are excellent. The cinematography overall is of very good quality. The only drawback to the movie is there are some scenes that were not necessary and over-explained the story. I have not read the novel so I do not know how the movie compares to the book, however, the movie is very enjoyable, and in being so respects the work of the author. We highly recommend this fun, family movie.

siderite I've never been able to read Terry Pratchett's books, mostly because they were too ... British. All those large words and phrasing that seems to always say more than one can possibly understand. So I was grateful for a chance to grasp a little of what all this Discworld business is all about.The film is clearly a TV movie, the special effects are simple and either completely CGI or weird mashups (like the fire breathing dragon bit), but that never bothered me because the acting was great, the story fun and the people in it clearly enjoying every moment of its making.Bottom line: like the old Shakespeare plays that BBC was doing and I gobbled up as a young child or like Doctor Who or any other of those shows that Brits do, which are cheaply done, but with a lot of soul, I really liked it. I am looking forward to watching Hogfather, next.

Badauta Until having seen "the Colour of Magic" a couple of days ago, it seemed impossible to me that the essence of a work of literature could successfully be transported into the plot-based medium of the film: this production, however, managed impressively to concentrate on the discworld novels' linguistics. The whole film is a glorious firework of puns, absurd dialogues, hilarious speeches and twisted theories, full of witty allusions to our real world's historical, philosophical, cultural, social, political, economic etc. realities, just like in the novels. The narrator's introductions sparkle playful rhetoric; the scene changes abound in funny little parallelisms; the plot follows with complete logic the discworld's crazy intrinsic reality; all characters are represented with convincing comedy, far from being ridiculed – a superb achievement especially among those "of the elderly persuasion"; thankfully, the audience is spared the usual trivial matters and unconvincing special effects; the most brilliant performance, of course, is Sir David Jason's magnificent characterisation of Rincewind in his countless dangerous confrontations from neck-romance to informal death, whose accomplishments mere words cannot describe adequately. Failing to understand the adverse criticism, I assume that many expected more loyalty towards the novels' details and maybe have not properly paid attention to the film as a whole: From hub to rim, all the important things have been preserved, the pathetic coward Rincewind, yet the only mentally sane person on the whole Disc; the ancient barbarian Cohen who has heroically survived his own legend; the frighteningly ambitious and maddening orderly wizard Trymon; the ingenuous tourist Twoflower, an expert in starting annoying discussions at precisely the wrong moments; his loyal luggage with its "homicidal attitude towards anyone who threatens its master"; and all the other peculiar personalities, officious magic devices, spells with speech impediments and curious disc dwellers carried through space on the majestic Great A'tuin... there is no reason to dwell on petty little details, when the adaptation has turned out to be the Best Film Ever. Hopefully, we will face another "near-Rincewind-experience" soon: it won't be long until he comes running past again, will it?

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.