Tales from Earthsea

Earthsea is originally a fictional realm created by Ursula K. Le Guin. Hayao Miyazaki once offered her to make a film adaptation of it. She rejected the idea at first, but later wanted him to do it because she loves his films. Unfortunately, Miyazaki was working on Howl's Moving Castle (2004) at the time and couldn't begin working on the film so his son, Goro Miyazaki, decided to direct it. Tales from the Earthsea (2006) is a loose adaptation of Le Guin's books. The film follows Arren, a prince running away from a crime he committed. Eventually he runs into Shadowhawk, a powerful wizard, and thus the "true adventure" begins.

As usually, Ghibli's animation is visually breathtaking. The background art is vivid and marvellous. The character design does not differ at all from Ghibli's other films - and that is fine because it always works well. The beginning of the film is roughly paced because it doesnt succeed well in introducing the characters. The ending is also a little weird and doesnt feel like the logical closure point. The last 15 minutes drag on for quite long and the ending left me cold. Luckily everything in between is paced satisfyingly enough.

The content is more or less a failure in my eyes. Because the beginning doesnt let the viewer easily into characters, I became more and more distant to them as the movie went further. It seemed as if all the "depth" - from characters to themes - is simply rushed in a silly way. The main character is the poor man's Shinji with such weird character development that I was disappointed. There is a girl, Therru, who was handled pretty well though (I'm not going into more detail to save you from spoilers). Tales from Earthsea certainly uses most of the cliched fantasy tropes, but that is only because the original book series made them famous in the first place, so that shouldn't be seen as a flaw.

Tales from Earthsea is usually regarded as the worst Ghibli movie by far. I agree because I can clearly see why. It is an uneven film with only a few redeeming qualities.

Score: 5 out of 10