invisibleunicornninja This film, though deeply flawed was still entertaining. I had a lot of fun watching it. I haven't read the book, and as always I'd like to advise anyone planning to watch to stick around for the end credits as there are scenes in them. Plot - The plot was decent. It was coherent and well-written. There is a love story that's kinda thrown in there that I didn't really like, but other than that its pretty good. Villan - The villains are never that good in movies. The one in this movie isn't much of an exception. His only motivation seemed to be his hatred for the post office, which wasn't really explained. Though not all of his plans worked, and some of them were kind of dumb, he was an actual threat. There was actual tension throughout the story because this guy is actually prepared to kill people to get what he wants and doesn't waste time with pointless monologues. The Effects - I was laughing each time this movie attempted to use any kind of practical effects or CGI. This movie's sets are also bad - not as bad as the effects, but still. This movie clearly did not have the budget it needed. If this movie had more money to work with, I'm sure that it would've looked a lot nicer.Acting - Most of the actors were pretty good. They make their cartoonish personalities come to life. I didn't like some of the characters. but that's not at the fault of the actors. I liked that the protagonists and the villains were all relatively clever and for the most part knew what they were doing. It made the story more enjoyable. There are some bits where smart characters act infuriatingly stupid, but nowhere near as much as some others. Speed and Sound - There are a ton of scenes that are clearly sped-up. I don't know why. Most of them aren't even scenes where anything intense is happening. Its extremely awkward to see characters move around in that jerky fashion. There are also a lot of weird shots throughout the film that are incredibly cringeworthy. There are also some problems with the sound design. The voices and mouth movements didn't always match up. Overall this was a fun, somewhat clever movie with some cringeworthy humor and presentation. I had a bit of fun watching this movie, but I probably wouldn't watch it again.

Tweekums From an early age Moist von Lipwig made a living by conning others out of theirs; ultimately he is caught in the city of Ankh-Morpork and sentenced to hang. He survives the hanging and finds himself being given a choice by Lord Vetinari, the city's patrician, he can either be executed again or take over the running of the city's failing post office. Not surprisingly he chooses the latter. When he gets to the Post Office he soon thinks he has been given an impossible task; there are years' worth of letters stacked everywhere and all recent post masters have met with untimely deaths. He is a quick thinker and soon starts to get the service working again… much to the annoyance of Reacher Gilt, the owner of the 'Clacks'; a system of sending messages via semaphore, who doesn't want any rivals. It becomes apparent that Gilt isn't above murder eliminate the competition. Moist von Lipwig will have to be particularly clever and get the help of Adora Belle Dearheart, whose family invented the clacks but were conned out of its ownership, if he is to keep the post office open and avoid being hanged again.I enjoyed this adaption of Terry Pratchett's book; I haven't read it yet but have read others featuring many of the characters including 'Making Money' which is also centred on Moist von Lipwig. I thought Richard Coyle did a really good job bringing the character to life. Charles Dance was suitably imposing as Lord Vetinari and Claire Foy impressed as Adora. I was less sure about David Suchet's performance as Gilt; it had a bit too much of the pantomime villain for my tastes. Ankh-Morpork was portrayed well enough although I imagined it to be more threatening with narrower streets and intimidating characters lurking in the shadows. There were plenty of things to enjoy about the production; I liked how the Clacks where depicted and the appearance of various characters who have small parts here but are more important in other Disc World novels; notably Sergeant Angua, the werewolf in the Watch. Overall I rather enjoyed this and would recommend it to people who have enjoyed the Disc World books.

elessardunedain I'm a big fan of Terry Pratchett novels. I've read about thirty of them and I love them. "Going Postal" was among my favorites.The film renders the plot quite faithfully most of the time. Most of the characters are very similar to their novel counterparts. Richard Coyle (whom you may know from TV comedy show "Coupling") does a very good performance as Moist von Lipwig, the new postmaster and Charles Dance (the doctor from "Alien 3") is fantastic as lord Havelock Vetinari.You haven't read the book? You get a decent comedy with many funny quips and one liners. There is some fantasy (fantastic creatures like werewolf, banshee and golems) and some magic, but most of the plot revolves around humans and their emotions: love, hate, greed, vengeance. The story is about the Post Office of Ankh Morpork. People have forgotten about Post Office in times of "Clacks" (something like telegraphy). But there are some who want Post Office running again and a lifelong conman Moist von Lipwig is conned into trying to run it.Of course the movie misses many of the novels subtle humorous details, but is fun enough to watch.

white_rainbow I've seen a lot of adaptations on British television, and read most of the related books, so it took me a while to bring myself to see this adaptation after the gut-wrenching horror that was The Colour of Magic. I was hoping for something better.On the plus side, some of the acting is above acceptable, especially from the minor characters. Richard Coyle is not too bad as Moist von Lipwig, but the other leading characters are very disappointing. Dance as Vetinari is neither emotionless enough to be terrifying nor terrifying enough to be intriguing, and Suchet as Reacher Gilt ends up as a typical one-dimensional screen villain. Claire Foy is unfortunately hardly worth mentioning as Adora Belle, so I hardly will.The set design is rather good, and the special effects are mostly an improvement on the embarrassment of the previous adaptations. British television has a reputation for beautiful costuming in 'period' adaptations, and Going Postal lives up to this.On the minus side, the writing of the adaptation itself is poor. My opinion is that adapting a novel should involve taking the most effective parts of it and ensuring that they are presented on screen, while discarding anything unnecessary (and usually any side plots) to save time. The LOTR adaptations were particularly fine examples, as they mostly managed to remove side plots and adapt the remaining content to flow well and retain drama. Gormenghast was slightly less fine, but retained the darkness of the original characters, which made it successful. This adaptation struggles because the writers removed the elements of the plot and characters that made the book so excellent. This left a lot of space, which unfortunately got filled up with rubbish.Specifically, what makes the book so excellent is the structure of and interplay between the characters. As always, Pratchett makes it difficult to separate the 'good' and 'bad' at face value. For example, the irresistibly likable Lipwig and Reacher Gilt are almost indistinguishable until close to the end of the book. Adora Belle is completely misanthropic, but unusually caring about her golems. And behind it all, Vetinari plays the almost godlike ringmaster.All of this is lost in the adaptation, which leaves it feeling flat and mediocre. Worse, the dialogue and plot that was added instead is sappy, lifeless and pandering. Lipwig is no more likable than anyone else, which makes a good portion of the plot nonsensical. Gilt is so transparently evil that one wonders why anyone would trust him with a single penny. And the romantic subplot with Adora Belle changes from a wonderful clash of characters and excellent banter to a rather simple and boring love interest.The adaptations are improving gradually, but I hope that eventually the writers will take some risks and write characters more true to the novels. Terry Pratchett is a hugely successful writer not just because of his plots, but because of his disregard for narrative convention, his wonderful characters and electric dialogue. It would be good to see at least some of that retained on screen.Overall, my major complaint is not what was removed or changed from the book, but what it was replaced with. An excellent book that could have been a gorgeous miniseries has become merely a dull, average miniseries with a slightly better than average plot. A huge opportunity wasted.