Sameer Callahan It really made me laugh, but for some moments I was tearing up because I could relate so much.

Keeley Coleman The thing I enjoyed most about the film is the fact that it doesn't shy away from being a super-sized-cliche;

Cassandra Story: It's very simple but honestly that is fine.

Phillipa Strong acting helps the film overcome an uncertain premise and create characters that hold our attention absolutely.

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.

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.

Marko Pudina This movie was a huge disappointment for me....it's slow, boring, and long......the characters are somewhat funny, but that doesn't make the movie much better.....slow, boring, and barely watchable. If you want to watch this movie cause you enjoy magic and you are extremely in love with it you could have some joy out of it....now i understand why this movie was distributed directly to the TV... . . . .I was shocked when I had seen that this movie has more than 7.2 average score...i was really really interested when i saw this, but then as the movie started I realized that this is not the movie I expected it to be. It has a nice story, i really love disk world but it should have been done much better than this, so I rate it 3 out of 10

alisoncircus 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.