The Color of Magic

Terry Pratchett is a fantasy comedy writer with a big library of titles based on his fantastical flat-as-a-pancake creation, the Discworld. It is a place filled with inept wizards, smart witches, vampires, wolfmen and trolls, and every creature in between. Among my favorite storylines are those that involve the witch Granny Weatherwax and her friends, and Death and his adopted granddaughter Susan.

This second live action film based on Pratchett's works is a combination of the first Discworld novel, The Colour of Magic, as well as The Light Fantastic, and involves the dotty wizards at Unseen University, who do their utmost to retain tenure while shirking as much work as possible.


David Jason plays Rincewind, one of the lower level junior wizards (although he is quite old) who gets no respect from his seniors, maybe because he is quite incompetent as a wizard. He meets a tourist, Twoflower (Sean Astin), and through some accidents, Rincewind is expelled and he and Twoflower travel the town of Ankh-Morpork, not realizing that Rincewind is in danger due to a magic spell he doesn't realize he possesses. Basically these two characters have comical yet fantastic and dangerous adventures and end up saving the world due to a special spell Rincewind has in his head.

Although the production values, storyline and humor are good and remain pretty faithful to the series, it does still have a made-for-tv feel to it. They did get some respected, mature British actors; in addition to David Jason (who also exec produced this), Christopher Lee plays Death, Brian Cox narrates, Tim Curry is a pompous wizard (the villain), and Jeremy Irons plays the "Patrician," a sort of mayor/town ruler (I wouldn't expect him in a comedy like this but his part is not very big).

While the books involving the wizards were not always my favorites, and some parts of this film drag a little (it's two parts--3 hours and 20 minutes long), it is a decent adaptation and I am looking forward to the next one, Going Postal.

The previous film, Hogfather (based a book with the same name), had a more emotional storyline, involving a Christmas-like holiday and a relative of Death taking over his job when he goes AWOL playing "Hogfather," a sort of Santa Claus. This film has less emotion, but more silly humor and adventure (it's almost all old men) so is not as emotionally involving, and probably will entertain a Pratchett fan more than someone new to this series. Watch this one after trying some of the books and the previous movie.