Tales from Earthsea (2006)

A little before I was a little too busy to watch movies and write reviews, Candra suggested that when I came back, that we should see a Studio Ghibli film that was actually directed and co-written my Hayao Miyazaki's son, Gorō Miyazaki. We had no idea what the movie was about or what the ratings where for it, so we decided to watch it together and find out. So here's what I thought of Tales from Earthsea.

Plot: The king of a land called Enlad is assassinated by his own son, Arren who shortly afterwords, leaves the kingdom. But while traveling, Arren comes across a powerful wizard named Sparrowhawk who takes him as a companion. Along the way, Arren is captured by slavers, but is rescued by Sparrowhawk, which leads to the slavers informing it to another powerful wizard named Cob who wants to gain eternal life. So Cob sends his men to find and capture Sparrowhawk, while he and Arren are staying in a farm of Sparrowhawk's old friend Tenar and a young girl named Thurru who has a loathing for Arren despite the fact that he saved her life.

So what did Candra and I think of this movie? Well...we liked it, but at the same time when we looked back at it and looked at reviews for it, we realized that it's also a movie that's not exactly one of Studio Ghibli's best. But let's start off with what's good about the movie. Firstly, there is obviously the animation. While we didn't get a whole lot of things from the animation that really stood out as really marveling aside from some of the landscapes or the views of the cities that the characters have visited, it was still great animation in the way that only Studio Ghibli can give us. Then there's the characters themselves, particularly Arren and Thurru. While I thought they could've given us a little more development with both, I for one still found them interesting with how they both had these dark, complex and - in Arren's case - kind of unique back stories to them. And like any other Studio Ghibli film that's made in English, it's nice to hear some of the characters voiced by familiar actors, in this case, Cheech Marin as Cob's main henchman, Timothy Dalton as Sparrowhawk, and William Dafoe as Cob. So what is it that people didn't like about it? Well the first case is that it's not loyal to the Earthsea book series. Now in this case, Candra and I wouldn't know since we didn't know jack-squat about this movie going in, so that one isn't a big deal for us. Another complaint is it being too long, boring and too complicated. Well... we wouldn't argue about the complicated part. Though at the same time, both of us have found a lot of Hayao Miyazaki's work to be a little complicated and confusing the first couple of times we see them, but then they make more sense the more times we watch them. So at this point, we just assumed that Gorō Miyazaki is just trying to follow his father's footsteps in that aspect. But if there's one problem people have that we definitely have to agree is a big one in retrospect, it's that Tales from Earthsea is too dark and has little to no comedy or charm whatsoever. Now I personally liked a good portion of the dark stuff as it helped with most of the suspense and drama that was happening in the movie such as, again, the back stories of Arren and Thurru. But it did have moments such as the very end of the climax where it felt like they went a little too far in being dark. But even with that aside, the movie does majorly lack the comedy, lightness and above all charm that makes the Studio Ghibli films from Hayao Miyazaki so lovable and memorable that makes it so sad that he's retired now after making The Wind Rises. Yes, there are some films like  The Castle of Cagliostro or Princess Mononoke where Hayao has written/directed something dark (or have language in The Castle of Cagliostro's case), but even those films has cute moments of comedy and charm. So ultimately, the biggest problem with Tales from Earthsea, is that as far as following his father's footsteps goes, Gorō does alright with giving us some dark moments and having a complicated and/or uniquely structured story, but fails at everything else that makes his father a lovable and memorable writer and director.

And that's my review for Tales from Earthsea. Candra and I liked it fine with it's story and characters and animation, but we agree that the film falls flat with giving us the charm that makes other Studio Ghibli films to enjoyable. If you've read the actual Earthsea books or not a fan of filsm that are particularly dark or takes a while to really understand, you're probably not going to like this film. Otherwise, I'd say take it for what it's worth and give it a try.
55%