Tales from Earthsea

40 minutes ago I was at 'Tales from Earthsea'. Not quite the beautiful animation of 'Howl's Moving Castle', though it's from Ghibli Studios too. Still interesting. As with the Potter movies, if you have a strong novel at the back of it, it's hard to make a complete mess. Ursula Le Guin's Earthsea novels are very well regarded (though I'm sad to say I've read none of them, yet). 'Tales' is absorbing, though not without many faults. It spends a little too much time on farmyard life when it could be explaining a bit more about dragons, for instance, but screenplays have not always been Ghibli's strong point. Certainly the ending came out of nowhere. Nevertheless the Japanese take on things, in contrast to Hollywood's, is always refreshing. So who cares about a little narrative incoherency. What Hollywood elements there are are appreciated though. Timothy Dalton makes a fair stab at Sparrowhawk, while Willem Dafoe is unmistakable as bad guy, Cobb. Messy, and perhaps not up to Ghibli Studio's high standard (it is the debut film of director Goro Miyazaki, son of the more famous Hayao), it's still a worthwhile effort.

Better stop now. 'Seraphim Falls' is about to start.