ehalcomb: Tales From Earthsea Review || Anime Movie Review

I have a lot of mixed feelings about this film. On one hand it is really enjoyable especially because I'm a sucker for mid evil fantasy stories but on the other hand it does absolutely nothing special. Though Tales From Earthsea doesn't do much that is spectacular, it's opening is great. Right off the bat you see an old ship in dangerous waters, two dragons fighting, and wizard accompanying the ship's crew. This screams mid evil fantasy and I love it when movie intros set up the setting so seamlessly. Right after this scene, however, is when the problems with the film are introduced. We see our first glimpse of the main hero, Arren (yes, that's how it's spelled), as he does a spoiler-free bad deed and receives a mysterious and magical sword out of it. This brings forth the problem with Arren. Until the end of the movie, his feelings about the bad deed he has are only slightly mentioned by the directing. Movies are supposed to show and not tell but at times I feel that the movie isn't showing enough of the character's emotions which make some of them come out at times bland and uninspired. I believe this isn't because of the writing or characters themselves. Rather, it is because of the slow pace of the film. Ghibli's films have always been slow paced but in Tales From Earthsea it seems like the pace is more of a hindrance to the experience rather than part of it. A way, I think, this could have easily been fixed is if the movie was given more action. The reason Princess Mononoke wasn't boring was because it had action sequences during the sections that could have been downtime. In this film, though I enjoy relationships between some of the characters and therefore enjoy some of the downtime, there is just too much of it. What I do love about the film I love. The music, though nothing groundbreaking, is very good and fits with the setting quite nicely. The varied environment are also very nice. The bustling town, the windy desert, and the farm by the cottage. All of these are very nice to look at and don't linger too much before the story progresses. Again, I am very torn on Tales From Earthsea. It is a fun adventure with good characters but the pacing can blind the average viewer from a lot of the good that this movie has to offer.

Tales From Earthsea is not great but worth a look.