The Colour of Magic (2008)

I wanted to like it more than I actually did... But much of the humor totally escaped me and I walked out only mildly impressed.

It's funny, it's tense, it features two great performances from two actors and the director expertly creates a web of odd tension where you actually don't know what is happening for the majority of the run time.

If you like to be scared, if you like to laugh, and if you like to learn a thing or two at the movies, this absolutely cannot be missed.

This movie feels like it was made purely to piss off people who want good shows

This Discworld story follows Rincewind, a student wizard who is expelled from the Unseen University for failing to reach the first level of wizardry after forty years of study, and Twoflower, the Discworld's first tourist. The pair meet the Broken Drum tavern where Twoflower's large trunk full of gold coins has attracted more than a little attention. Rincewind agrees to show Twoflower the sites but does a runner after being paid… however a few words from the Patrician of Ankh-Morpork explaining that he is to ensure Twoflower has a good time and returns to his homeland with a good impression of the city he returns. It isn't long before the two of them get involved in a series of adventures that will lead them to have encounters with dragons, a troll and even discover what is over the edge of the disc amongst other things. While all this is going on we see the politics of the Unseen University at work as the devious wizard Ymper Trymon murders his way to the top then seeks the ultimate power of learning the eight powerful spells in the 'Octavo'… there is just one problem; one of the spells is in the head of Rincewind.I have read a few Discworld novels but not 'The Colour of Magic' or 'The Light Fantastic' on which this is based. I thought this adaption nicely captured Terry Pratchett's Discworld even if the relatively low budget does show at times. Since it is based on the first two books one doesn't need to be familiar with the Discworld as things are nicely explained. The story is an enjoyable adventure that can be enjoyed by all ages as the scary bits are more comic than frightening and there is no crudeness to the humour. The cast do a solid job; David Jason is likable as Rincewind, Sean Astin nicely captures the stereotype of a slightly annoying but harmless foreign tourist who wants to see all the sights and Tim Curry delightfully hams it up as the villainous Trymon. Overall I found this to be enjoyable; I hope we'll get more adaptions of Disc World novels… hopefully based on the activities of the Night Watch.

OK, first thing's first.This doesn't have the budget of your average fantasy movie, so don't expect good effects or masks or settings all the time. They fit 2 books of material into 3 hours of film so a lot was cut - understandable and all things considered, well enough. Colour of Magic is not the most interesting / best written of his books to begin with - which doesn't diminish its importance in the grand scheme of things, but hey, it doesn't help anything. All that considered, it's well done and I can appreciate it.But some things I can't get over.For example... the cast. The fact that David Jason and Sean Astin are fans of the book, made me like them even more. But man... Rincewind ISN'T OLD. OR FAT. You don't go and change the appearance of the most recognizable character from a very well known series and change his appearance and back story drastically so that it would fit the actor playing him :/. Heck, even in the playback he's neither ginger nor looking like the marathon runner he is. I don't buy Twoflower as an American too... And the Librarian... one of the best characters of the novels is, despite everything shown extensively as a human, and an irritating, neurotic one to boot. And as an ape... he's downright creepy. There's one exception -> Cohen does look like himself, I'll give you that. There are more completely unnecessary discrepancies but I don't care to continue with naming them all.To sum it up, David Jason as Rincewind, despite being a great actor that I respect a lot, kills the movie for me. And it's NOT his acting's fault (even if I've seen better performances from him and feel like he was overacting in some ways), it's just the way he looks. I can't imagine Rincewind like that. It's just not him.And the humor, OK, so that's subjective, but I've found that the "old" one works only occasionally in here and the newly added stuff is groan or face-palm inducing in all situations bar one (Death's last comment of the movie got a smile from me). Some things look really shoddy too, but I'll "blame" that on the budget and not take it against the movie.Strange that Pratchett would allow some these... but who knows. CoM (more) and LF (less) ARE apart in some ways from the canon he created later on to begin with. It might be OK if you look at it in that way.

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.

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