Inclubabu Plot so thin, it es unnoticed.
Skunkyrate Gripping story with well-crafted characters
Beystiman It's fun, it's light, [but] it has a hard time when its tries to get heavy.
Wyatt There's no way I can possibly love it entirely but I just think its ridiculously bad, but enjoyable at the same time.
nosiesnetnieuws I was very excited to hear this movie existed. I wanted to introduce my partner to Discworld and this seemed an exciting way to do so. Hogfather is a great book, so we decided to watch the movie.All I can say is... don't do this. While the movie is nicely executed visually and rather faithfully follows the story of the book, it also has some serious flaws. Visually, it leans (too) heavily on famous examples such as Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter. The music seems composed by Danny Elfman for A Nightmare Before Christmas. Pacing-wise, it clearly suffers from being 3 hours long. From the sluggishly delivered introduction narration to the dialogs to the visual scenes -- everything seems to play in a universe where time is stretched by a factor two. Content-wise, it focuses strongly on the dramatic and substantially downplays the fun in the book. Finally, all actors seem keen on speaking English as incomprehensibly as possible.All in all, we stopped watching after the first half. And we're the audience that probably would love this movie most. I'm a major fan of the Discworld novels; she's a major fan of aforementioned books-turned-into-movies, loves to read, loves endearing and humorous stories as well as exciting whodunits, and speaks English natively.We've read that the other two movies (Going Postal mostly, but also The Colour of Magic) are much better. We'll try one of these. But ultimately I think the best way to introduce her to Discworld is by giving her a Discworld book.READ THEM! THEY'RE FANTASTIC!
TBJCSKCNRRQTreviews It's that time of the year again... Hogswatch. It bears a lot of similarities to your Christmas. However, The Hogfather(Santa) is being attacked. Death takes up his job, and we also follow a school of wizards... and these take up a lot of time and leave to relatively little pay-off. Then again, it is fun to see the odd gang of criminals(led by Mr. Teatime... pronounced Te-ah-tim-eh) undertake a creative plan to take care of the symbol of the end-of-the-year Christian celebration. You have probably figured out by now that this is set on Discworld(a disc-shaped planet carried by four elephants atop a turtle floating through outer space), Terry Pratchett's famous universe. I have not read much by him, but it was enough to know that imitating his writing style is impossible. It's far too literary. What they have done here is a good solution to this issue, and the humor(with sharp wit), quirk and commentary is largely intact. I have already touched upon the biggest problem with this... the pace is drab, and unless you *love* the comedy(with cleverness, silly stuff, verbal material and in general a "realistic" interpretation of a world with magic, complete with bureaucracy), you will not watch all three hours of this(even if the first of the two episodes do end with a cliffhanger). There are annoying characters, many jokes do not work and the FX range(the Grim Reaper's face is just a mask(the mouth doesn't even move!) and CGI is OK). The sets are nice. There is a dark tone, and bizarre and creepy instances in some of this. This has memorable bits as well, such as a computer run by ants and hamsters running in wheels. What I enjoyed the most about this was the exploration of faith and hope. This is a running theme, and the moral of this is smart and well-delivered. I personally found it worth the investment of time, but if you aren't interested in philosophy and religion, you may not. There is disturbing content and a little moderate language in this. I recommend this to fans of the author of the books. 7/10
Steven Duhig Following Vadim's projects as a fan after being introduced to him some some years ago. Then he revealed that he, like me is a Terry Pratchett fan. Many have tried to emulate Terry's books on screen and this production is by far the best to date and in my opinion is truly outstanding. Love just about everything about it. The sets, sound effects and visuals are really wonderful. Camera work great. Even though originally conceived as a TV Series we are able to view this in one extended session with a short break, and, despite it's length, it still carries our interest all the way through and is spell binding for our kids too. Vewed several times and I expect we will view this again at this time of year on request. Can't wait to see more of Vadim's Colour of Magic!
fwomp Part of the difficulties with translating a book to film is losing much of what the author tries to convey. Books allow the writer to squeeze in much more character information and wit, while films must do so in (usually) under two hours. Thankfully this duology expands that time line a tad to a much needed three hours and nine minutes. I say much needed because author Terry Pratchett's books deserve the full treatment in of time. But, unfortunately, even with this extended amount, the story suffers in translation. Although I must give credit to direct Vadim Jean (who also did the screenplay adaption and continues to adapt Mr. Pratchett's excellent Discworld series), it's tough to give a ravingly positive review to something that I enjoyed only marginally as much as the written works.I sitting in a restaurant on a meal break one day and having portions of a ham sandwich fly from my nose while reading Hogfather. Death (in the film voiced very well by Ian Richardson, BECOMING JANE) is a central character, and both the book and the movie keep it that way. But what is lost is the clever witticisms of the narrator (Pratchett) that often causes the reader to nearly choke with restrained laughter while trying to keep from puking or inhaling food particles. It was, however, pretty funny to see Death cloaked in Santa (i.e., Hogfather) garb while mushing a sleigh towed by heavily-tusked boars.Marc Warren (WANTED) as Mr. Teatime was a good choice, as he had just the right amount of ruthlessness (which was plenty) and naiveté (toward his fellow Discworld inhabitants) to make him a fearfully funny antagonist.However, from here things get off-track. Michelle Dockery plays Susan, the main protagonist, but is mostly lost amidst the larger story. Her part was vital in the novel, but here we simply don't see that much of her in of character development. Beating up monsters under the bed? Funny, yes. Trying to protect her scythe-wielding relative? Okay, pretty funny. But what of the rest of her development? In truth, there isn't any in the film. She simply rushes off to help save Hogswatch Eve without much knowledge as to why she's so gung-ho to do it.The remaining characters are also given excessively abbreviated versions, which made the entire film much less laughable. Indeed, I think I only chuckled a few times during the entire three-plus hours, showing just how much was lost in translation.I will say, again, that I don't blame writer/director Vadim Jean for this. Without a doubt, this is a tough sell. How can you make something so densely funny as one of Mr. Pratchett's wonderful Discworld books into a guffaw-riddled flick? I think the simple answer is that you can't. And I think this adaptation proves it. But I will give Mr. Jean credit for trying. He succeeded on a very small level but I fear those that haven't read the novels might be less-than-impressed.Sorry guys.
