Movie Review: Hogfather

Stars: 3 out of 5
Pros: Acting, visuals, fun

Cons: Extremely slow

The Bottom Line:

It's not that it's bad

But it needed editing

To make it better

'Twas the Night Before Hogswatch

Even though I don't follow fantasy that much, I had heard of Terry Pratchett's immensely popular Discworld book series. These stories take place in a parallel universe where magic is ordinary. I had always been curious about them, so when a friend offered to loan me the British miniseries Hogfather, based on one of the books, I decided to see what all the fuss was about.

In Discworld, the winter holiday is Hogswatch, which bears a remarkable resemblance to our Christmas. This particular Hogswatch, something is amiss, however. The Auditors have approached the assassin's guild and taken out a contract on the Hogfather (you know, Santa.) How do you kill a potentially mythological creature? Well, the guild decides to send their craziest assassin, Teatime (Marc Warren) to do the job.

As Teatime (that's pronounced Teh-a-tim-ay, by the way) goes about his mission, the body count begins to rise, which catches the attention of Death (a wonderful puppet voiced by Ian Richardson). Over the years, Death has grown fond of humans, so he sets out to fill in for the suddenly missing Hogfather.

And Death's antics catch the attention of Susan (Michelle Dockery), his granddaughter. When Susan learns what is happening, she sets out to find the Hogfather and save his life, a mission that takes her to the Tooth Fairy's castle. Will she be in time?

There is much to praise about this adaptation. First of all, it looks incredible. I mean, this was done for TV? It's filled with detail and color to keep your eyes on the screen. It was released in wide screen TV ratio, and I'm sure my HD TV helped with the picture, but it truly looked incredible. And keep in mind I watched a standard definition DVD. I can't image how it would look in high-def. (I don't think it is available in HD yet. I'm just saying.)

And that applies to the special effects as well. Death was in quite a bit of the movie, and he is a puppet. Yet he is perfectly believable. While slightly creepy to look at, he is not truly scary at all, especially the more time we spend around him. In fact, watching him try to be the Hogfather provide some of the best laughs of the film.

Even with all the darkness and death, this is basically a light hearted film. I don't know if I'd go so far as to say laugh out loud funny, but it is at least amusing. Yet there are some serious discussions about belief and the nature of humans to believe myths of some kind. It's kind of nice to stop and think.

While those deeper scenes might go over kids' heads, there is little here to keep them from watching the film. As I already said, the creep factor is kept to a minimum. While there is violence, it is rather cartoony and mostly bloodless.

While the acting is uniformly good, I have to single out Marc Warren for his portrayal of Teatime. He was creepy and eccentric without being over the top. While I was obviously rooting for his character to fail, I loved watching every moment he was on the screen.

So what's not to like? This miniseries was originally 3 hours long. Translated, that means the film was slow going. The story never moves forward quickly. And there is an entire sub-plot involving a wizarding college that could really have been cut. Most of it had little to do with the story. And it seems like the information we did need could have been worked in somewhere else. I think if it had been cut down to two hours, I would have enjoyed it a lot more.

I realize I have just spoken blasphemy to the fans of the books. They probably loved those details. And they will love watching this adaptation of Hogfather. The rest of us can do worse then this miniseries, but a good editing job would have made things more enjoyable.