Tales from Earthsea (2010)

I like both Studio Ghibli films and the Ursula LeGuin's Earthsea books, but this film did little for me. While the backgrounds and 'set pieces' were striking, as expected in anime from this studio, the realisation of the characters left a lot to be desired, especially Ged who was bland and Cob, who was oddly androgynous. I also found the voices used in the English version either dull (Timothy Dalton's generic 'gentle English lord') or silly (Cheech Marin's hodgepodge of accents). The biggest weakness, however, was the story, which was just boring – by the time things began to happen, I'd stopped caring and was just waiting for the film to end. Pity: LeGuin's Earthsea book could make a fantasy movie to rival the Lord of the Rings or the Harry Potter series, but so far, all we have is a second rate anime and an awful made for TV 'sword and sorcery' romp.

When I first heard of this film I didn't know what to expect. I was shocked to find out that there was a Ghibli movie dubbed bad by people. At first I thought there must have been some bias hatred against the movie, but then I remembered that this is a Ghibli picture. Unlike most animation studios, Ghibli usually gets some of the most fair and honest reviews from people and critics alike. So I thought to myself what makes this movie so bad. That's when I came up with the idea to go watch it and see for myself. Dear god were my expectations destroyed. This isn't just a bad film; this is a legit disgrace to the studio's name. Now don't get me wrong, I won't judge a film by its company's reputation. That's just unfair. I understand that tales from earthsea is the directorial debut of Gorō Miyazaki, but that doesn't mean I'm going to excuse all the crap that this flick pulled like a ton of other people have. I also should note that I haven't read the book this is based off of so I'm only going to talk about the film itself. However from what I keep hearing the movie didn't do a good job in respecting the source material.I think the best place to start the review is at the intro. The first 7 minutes are utterly atrocious for what they are. This is mainly due to how the animation is presented. Now before I go on ranting and raving I would like to say that the animation quality is not bad, far from it. It's amazing that the animation looks and feels as well as it does. The animators aren't to blame here the director is. The amount of ambiguousness and rushed pacing makes the intro come off as totally pretentious. It appears that Gorō tried to handle a scene that was beyond his current abilities at the time. Overall that's how the directing of this movie is. There are too many moments that try to feel bigger than they actually are. Thankfully not every scene is this way. At the 23 minute mark there's an impressive sword fight; it's brilliantly choreographed and utilizes the animation better than any other scene in the film. After watching the scene I had suspended my disbelief for the second time on the movie. Never before have I done that with any film. That's when I came up with the theory that Miyazaki must be holding back the good animation for later moments in the movie. That's a common mistake for first time directors. Unfortunately as the movie went on I soon found out that I was dead wrong about this as well. I respect all of the effort the animators put in, but even with all of their hard work the reality is that a good chunk of their effort is wasted to due to lots of the animation being barely utilized. The story was beyond confusing. It had a good amount of plot holes and unexplained story elements. Why are dragons significant? What does mean to have a true name? Why does the girl Therru near the end of the movie turn into a f@#king dragon?! What's with the magic sword deus ex machina? Why does Therru show romantic feelings towards a boy she spent a good amount of the movie hating on? I thought Ghibli was against that stereotype. This movie raises way too many questions than needed and never tries to explain them or any of the interesting mythology of the world around it. It was hard to care about any of the characters because of how absurdly written they were. The only people I liked were Sparrowhawk; the badass wizard, his old friend Tenar, and the highly intimidating yet soft spoken antagonistic wizard Cob. However near the end of the film they ruin all of these characters. They turn the courageous Sparrowhawk into a weak old man. They drained Tenar of all her spunk and passion. But worst of all they turned cob into a pathetic freak of nature. And no I don't think it adds to his character in any way. Gorō decided to make the 3 best characters worthless so I would have no choice but to focus on Arren and Therru during the finale. I don't think a film should force me to focus on people I don't have a connection towards. Instead they should've written their characters interestingly. The music and sound effects are phenomenal, but ultimately aren't too effective in their use. In some scenes the music really adds some life, but in many others it needlessly shows up. The voice work is mediocre at best. Some actors put up some effort while others barely try. But considering what they had to work with I don't blame all of the actors on their performances. How is it in Japanese? To be honest I don't care to watch this movie a third time to find out. Watching it twice to see if there was any re-watch ability was challenging enough. What I'm about to say is going to sound overly harsh, but I promised myself I was going to be blunt in this review. Tales from earthsea the movie is a complete joke. It's one of the worst movies I've ever watched to completion. Don't waste your precious time on it like I and many others did. Do yourself a favor and go watch Howl's moving castle, a good Ghibli adaptation of a book. Animation 6/10 Story 3.6/10 Pacing 4/10 Music and sound effects 6/10 Characters 4/10 Re-watch ability 4/10 Voice acting 5/10 FINAL SCORE 4.7/10 The movie's budget was 22 million dollars

*I watched the English dubbed version of this so some aspects of this review might not apply to the original* I watched this thinking it was a Hayao Miyazaki film. Only after watching it I noticed it was his son's work, Goro.Unfortunately this is no Hayao work in any respect. The best term I can use to describe it is "flat". Really, from characters to settings, to plot, even colors, drawing quality or music score, this is a pale reflection of works like princess Mononoke or Nausica and Spirited Away. Why a famed studio chose to release such an unworked movie and a bad adaptation of a famous fantasy novel is beyond me. The film did a very poor job in capturing my attention, and it managed to extract very little sympathy for the characters and their adversities. Much of the plot seems naive at best and many supposedly sentimental scenes centered on inner conflict made me yawn. During the very lengthy song scene I had my eyes closed because there was nothing interesting to watch. The degree of elaboration and overall style in graphics reminded me of a very old Hayao Miyazaki's work for TV, Heidi done in 1974, not a very favorable similarity by today's standards. In all, this film fails to create an inhabited universe that the spectator will feel intrigued to explore or a credible plot that they may follow. It is watchable, and perhaps moderately entertaining but utterly forgettable. Too bad, another missed chance for great literature to find good representation on the big screen. If magic ever filled this world, it had disappeared long before Goro Miyazaki decided to depict it.This is what the author thinks about the film, very enlightening: http://www.ursulakleguin.com/GedoSenkiResponse.html

I just finished watching Studio Ghibli's "Tales From Earthsea" expecting to see, and I quote from JesuOtaku, 'Hands down the worst Ghibli movie ever."It starts out clunky - there's lots of expositing and breaking the "show don't tell rule", it's kinda slow, we don't see much of the world here, most people speak in whispers for no reason,the main character mugs at the camera a lot, and his sword looks humorously phallic.But... it's not a bad movie. Not at all. And definitely not at all the worst Ghibli film. I can name three others that are much much worse in terms of storytelling, editing, and overall craft. I have no problem following the story. I can remember all of the character's names. I genuinely cared about what was happening. The villain Cob is SCARY and COMPLETELY worth your time to watch it. I think the main reason people hate it is because A. It's directed by Miyazaki's son and not him, and B. It doesn't FEEL like a Ghibli film. It is obviously made by very different minds than those who made Nausicaa, Castle in the Sky, and Princess Mononoke. And you know what? That's okay!The movie reminds me of the classic 1970's-early 90's fantasy genres. Ladyhawke, Dragonheart, Krull, and Highlander. All of those had lots of expositing (because they didn't have the budget for showing us the amazing lands they were talking about), plenty of mugging/overacting, whispering to make the scenes more dramatic and therefore cheesy, often slow at the beginnings, and had hilarious phallic or otherwise goofy props. They also all have really sugary morals at the end given to us in a speech, just like in Earthsea. And these movies hold a special nostalgic place in my heart. Animation can totally show us these worlds so the reason they aren't shown to us HAS to be a stylistic choice (or the budget was really that low, which is okay). Is this film a love letter to those fantasy movies? If so I can believe it. Tales From Earthsea isn't a terrible movie. Not at all. It's sweet, enjoyable, terrifying at times, and gave me a delicious plate of nostalgia.