dedeurs phonenumberofthebeast's review (2009) almost made me abandon the idea to write my own... Okay, David Jason's Rincewind is exactly as I pictured him, and Jeremy Irons and Tim Curry are quite memorable (as usual). Actually the set designers and 98% of the cast did a more than adequate job. Actors from the UK are always a delight! But the special effects look 1880's (except 'Luggage', he's amazing), the score is an attack on your eardrums, and both the orangutan librarian and Death make me wish I had chosen to watch episodes from 1970's Catweazle. (same type as Rincewind, but much funnier!) 'Death' is Pratchett's best novel character, he is mystic, dead-seriously ironic and sometimes hilariously human. And I get to see an actor wearing a cheap unmovable cardboard mask?? Come on, just some extra FX wizardry, and he would have been much more impressive, and even fearsome. Less relevant, but I always envisioned foreigner Twoflower as a little rotund semi-Asian guy. Not a robust American. (With all respect to Sean Astin)Pratchett's books constantly tickle my funny bone, even after an umpteenth re-reading. The movie made me laugh only once (and I forgot what it was).The problem, I think: Pratchett wrote novels in which the humor is not very subtle, it borders on slapstick, yet it is brilliant. Really, really funny. That man had an enormous wit. And although in the movie I heard familiar Discworld dialogues, they all fell flat. Director/screenwriter Vadim Jean clearly failed in transferring that quality.I dare not think what would have happened had Hollywood taken on Pratchett, but I do wonder what Terry Gilliam, Harry Potter's Alfonso Cuaron or David Yates (Potter again) would have made of The Colour of Magic... (Yes, it's 'colour'. It's a British title.)

Smoreni Zmaj Like in Hogfather, Death is pretty much lousy done, which is shame because Death is the most awesome character in Discworld series. But beside that, it is absolutely fantastic. I thought it would be impossible to adapt Pratchett to feature film and preserve it's original charm, but movie definitely possess spirit of written Discworld. The Luggage and legendary Del Boy in role of Rincewind are an inexhaustible source of entertainment. :D9/10

MikeChaff I don't think other reviews on here have quite captured my feelings on David Jason's performance in this. He made for an excellent Albert in The Hogfather, but that will never in a million years make him Rincewind. I can think of about a million other people they could have cast. Mackenzie Crook from Pirates of the Caribbean and The Office would have been incredible, or the bloke who plays Superhans in Peep Show... why not? Fair enough I guess they wanted a big-name actor, but almost anyone else would have done the trick. What if, say, Eric Idle had done it? I can see that working. Well the point is that I could read off names all day, and I'm sure you can think of a handful more. Instead of all those actors, though, we've got David Jason reciting his lines veeeeeeeeeeery slooooooooowly. Rincewind is not stupid! He's an intelligent, shrewd guy who is made pathetic by his all-consuming cowardice and his utter inability to take a noble stance on any issue. David Jason acting like he's reading lines off an autocue does not cut it.This film is eye-gougingly bad. Tim Curry reprises his usual role from everything he's ever been in and plays a Massive Ham, and the special effects range from acceptable to woeful (some of the bluescreen stuff is appalling, and their attempt at dragons was beyond poor). The plot has been hacked to smithereens, which I expected, but what's less excusable is that the film does occasionally actually contradict the canon established in the books, which is senseless. I'm not even a massive fan of the books, but this film does NOT do them justice. Avoid!

rokcomx Mr. Pratchett's books tend to be a bit nudge-nudge/wink-wink for my tastes. A little bit of Hitchhiker's Guide humor (or should that be humour?) goes a long way for us far less punny Yanks. So I've never read the book(s) that spawned this nearly 4-hour TV movie (seen last week on the ION Network in the U.S.).I didn't read the IMDb comments until after viewing, but I had the same bipolar "This is great" feeling during some scenes, and "This really sux" disdain during others. The cheesy budget constraints are a frequent stumbling block, as is the British tendency to keep speeding up scenes to fast-motion ala Benny Hill/Goodies/Python/BadNews/YoungOnes/etc. Poor substitute for genuine chuckles, which should have been aplenty, given the ludicrousness of the fantasy genre – An earlier comment mentions deviations from the book that "didn't make sense," but I disagree with most of the incidents he mentions. For instance, when the walking wardrobe (nice visual, but usually sped up like a Benny Hill chase-scene) seeks out Cohen the Barbarian to help his master, I just assumed the wardrobe – described as "fiercely protective of its owner" – recognized it needed heroic help to get Frodo's pal --- I mean the Worst Wizard's pal – out of his increasingly dangerous predicaments.And I certainly don't think we needed any more pit stops along the road to the distant finale, no matter how entertaining or troll-filled those pitsops may have been in the books.Tim Curry chews up all his scenes, and even seems to be paying tribute to (or gently mocking) several past roles with several sly bits of dialogue and inflection that harken back to Legend, Times Square, Annie, Spamalot, the Shout, and even Rocky and a couple of his cartoon villains.I didn't know Christopher Lee was Death until after viewing but, wow, his scenes were among the best! I loved how he just pops up out of nowhere whenever someone's life is on the line, seemingly caught in the middle of whatever he was doing at the time and becoming increasing bitter that his sharpened scythe is only scooping up uncredited extras and no marquee stars. You can tell much of what little budget there was went into tinting and partly animating his sequences, each of them terrific. I actually laughed aloud when our intrepid Tourist said, on the reaper's own monochromatic porchstep, "How often does one get to be at Death's door?" So the movie seems to be a low-budget but fairly accurate TV transcription of Pratchett's usual entry-level teen fiction take on the fantasy genre. Yeah, it's boneheaded at times, but at least the low common denominator it aims for is usually a funny denominator. To paraphrase the late Don Thompson, If you LIKE that sort of thing, this is that sort of thing.