Recap: The greedy Karg king Thygath is out to unite the archipelago of Earthsea, officially for peace and stability, but as always he is just greedy. Well, when the Kargish warriors invade Ged's small island Ged, son of the local smith, saves the village with a nice magical trick (combined with the utter stupidity of the invading soldiers). The local wizard Ogion sees great potential in Ged and sends him to the island of Roke, where there are a school for wizards. When competing with another student Ged unleashes a great horror onto the world, and is sent away from the school. At the same time Thygath tries to use the priestess of Atuan to gain immortal life. But the priestess won't help so he tries to gain the secret with deceit. But the young Tenar seem to stand in his way. And there is a mystic connection between Tenar and Ged.
Comments: First fact, the movie has messed up the story from the book totally. Author Le Guin seems to despise it, so a comparison with the book is not meaningful, and somewhat insulting to the book. But the movie doesn't fare much better alone. The story is bad, completely lacking suspense and predictable.
It is ironic that the four people shown on posters and the DVD menu, those who should be the protagonist, is rarely actually doing anything. Ged, the so-called hero and potentially a great wizard, is doing precious little magic and mostly sails about. He does a great deal of sailing. And sailing is not very much fun to see. Then we have Tenar, the pure young priestess. She dreams a little of Ged, gets named successor by Thar and get imprisoned. Ogion is barely in the movie, and Thar apart from naming Tenar as her successor is mostly sick and weak. And it is not very surprising that the lead characters do so little, as very little happens in this long movie. The few persons that actually do something are king Tygath, Kossil and the Archmagus. Overall, the acting is poor. Only Glover and Kreuk are above average.
Also the special effects and CGI are surprisingly bad. Some scenes remind me of graphics from computer games in the first half of the 90's. It is really horrible, and there are a few scenes where very poor computer graphics are used for example of a hawk, were a real hawk would have been much better.
There are precious few positive comments I can make about the movie. The casting of Glover is one, the ambition and interest to make a movie like this are one although the project fails in most aspects.
3/10
Comments: First fact, the movie has messed up the story from the book totally. Author Le Guin seems to despise it, so a comparison with the book is not meaningful, and somewhat insulting to the book. But the movie doesn't fare much better alone. The story is bad, completely lacking suspense and predictable.
It is ironic that the four people shown on posters and the DVD menu, those who should be the protagonist, is rarely actually doing anything. Ged, the so-called hero and potentially a great wizard, is doing precious little magic and mostly sails about. He does a great deal of sailing. And sailing is not very much fun to see. Then we have Tenar, the pure young priestess. She dreams a little of Ged, gets named successor by Thar and get imprisoned. Ogion is barely in the movie, and Thar apart from naming Tenar as her successor is mostly sick and weak. And it is not very surprising that the lead characters do so little, as very little happens in this long movie. The few persons that actually do something are king Tygath, Kossil and the Archmagus. Overall, the acting is poor. Only Glover and Kreuk are above average.
Also the special effects and CGI are surprisingly bad. Some scenes remind me of graphics from computer games in the first half of the 90's. It is really horrible, and there are a few scenes where very poor computer graphics are used for example of a hawk, were a real hawk would have been much better.
There are precious few positive comments I can make about the movie. The casting of Glover is one, the ambition and interest to make a movie like this are one although the project fails in most aspects.
3/10