Stale Popcorn

Let me start out by saying that I am a big reader. I really enjoy sitting down with a good book, and my favourite genres as far as stories go are science fiction, fantasy, horror & crime (who’da thought that my favourite book genres would also be my favourite movie genres, eh?). So you would think that this release would be pretty much a shoe in for me to enjoy, right? Especially when you add in the fact that I used to be quite a big fan of manga and I also like the previous Studio Ghibli releases that I’ve seen, like Howl’s Moving Castle and Swept Away. But then again, maybe not. You see, I’ve never read any of Ursula K. Le Guin’s Earthsea series. Not a one. So I have no vested interest in this title, especially not after seeing the terrible live action Tales From Earthsea starring Danny Glover & Kristin Kreuk the other week (have you ever seen that? God it’s dire!).

Tales From Earthsea tells the story of Prince Arren, a teenage boy discovered by a wandering wizard called Sparrowhawk (or Ged depending on if you’re watching the English dub or Japanese version), who is wandering the land after the death of his father, the king. Not wanting to leave the boy Sparrowhawk takes him with him on his quest to discover what is wrong with the world as something strange is afflicting it and not only are people acting oddly but the dragons, which never usually enter the world of humans, have started to appear.

Along the way they encounter a young girl called Therru, who Arren becomes very protective over and discover the plot of the evil Lord Cob, who is trying to grant himself immortality and is the one behind the events effecting the world of Earthsea.

Yeah, we’re in standard “wizard on a quest to save the world” territory!

First off, let’s discuss the animation. Even though this movie comes from Studio Ghibli, it’s not been directed by Hayao Miyazaki, the director behind Spirited Away and Howl’s Moving Castle, but by his son Goro Miyazaki who made his directorial debut with this movie. With that in mind, I have to say that the animation isn’t a patch on Spirited Away or Howl’s Moving Castle. That’s not to say it’s poor, but it certainly isn’t in the same class. In fact, it actually made me think of the old Mysterious Cities Of Gold TV series that I used to watch in the 1980′s! Now, that’s not a bad thing as I used to love that show but I was surprised that the standard of animation didn’t look as good.

I haven’t had a chance to watch the Japanese subtitled version yet so I can only tell you about the English dub, which for the most part is very enjoyable. Sparrowhawk is played by Timothy Dalton, which gave the character a certain gravitas which worked very well. Arren was played by Matt Levin, who if I’m honest I’d never heard of but has appeared in lots of TV shows and done quite a bit of voice work in the past. As it is, he didn’t make much of an impression on me one way or the other. At the very least, I didn’t want to throw my TV remote at the screen whenever Arren opened his mouth (yes, that is an urge I get when watching animated movies sometimes) which was a good thing.

And the only other voice cast member worth mentioning is Lord Cob, who is played by Willem Dafoe who once again seems to be having great fun portraying the villain behind the scenes, and if I’m honest his voice works so well for evil characters that he fits perfectly.

As a whole, from the perspective of never having read the books, this is an interesting enough movie. And it has gotten me interested in reading the books, as I would like to understand a little more about just what the hell is going on as at times, especially near to the beginning of the movie, some things just didn’t really make any sense. But once it gets past the midway point of the movie, and things are heading towards the ending and the final confrontation, it starts to become a lot clearer.

So overall, this isn’t a bad movie by any stretch of the imagination and, as a non-fan of the books, I quite enjoyed it. As I have already said, the animation, while decent enough, isn’t up to the standard of some other Studio Ghibli movies, but don’t let that put you off giving it a try.

Special Features

As well as the movie, in both English dub and original Japanese dub, on the first disc you also get:

Storyboards: Using the multi-angle feature of DVDs you can watch all of the storyboards from the movie with the movie soundtrack playing in the background or swap between the movie and the storyboards.

Unfortunately, the second disc containing most of the special features for this release didn’t land on my door mat with the check disc containing the movie itself, so I cannot tell you about them but what you get on the second disc is:

Making Of (11 mins)

NTV Special (44 mins)

Behind The Microphone (47 mins)

Studio Ghibli Trailer Reel

All in all, this is an entertaining release. The movie, while not amazing, is certainly enjoyable and keeps you interested in the story and you do care about the characters fates by the end of the movie.

DVD Release Details

Tales From Earthsea
Dir: Goro Miyazaki
Starring: (Japanese Version)Junichi Okada; Aoi Teshima; Yuko Tanaka; (English Version) Timothy Dalton; Matt Levin; Blaire Restaneo
Running Time: 115 mins (approx)
Release Date: 28th January 2008 (Region 2)
RRP: £19.99 (Buy it on Play.com)

Posted on Wednesday, January 23rd, 2008 at 12:09 pm under DVD Reviews (R2) by Gareth.
Tags:DVD Review R2

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