Hogfather is the movie adaptation of Terry Prachett's book of the same name. The book is about Discworld's Santa Claus and involves the "Death" set of characters. The movie's fairly obscure, so I'm targetting this review at those already familar with the book.
This is a pretty straightforward and not all that exciting adaptation. The effects are pretty good, but in most cases the acting didn't really excite me. Susan was alright, as was the Arch Dean of Wizards. Death and his butler were both quite good, although in Death's case its more a matter of voice acting.
On the upside, the film is entirely true to the book. I wasn't surprised that Terry Prachett had full oversight and no complaints about the production. It might have benefited a bit from being shorter but I don't think that would have made a huge deal either way.
I think the main problem is that it just wasn't really fully imagined as a movie. It feels very bookish and not in a great way. The finale is quite solid but prior to that the action bits are more montages and the lines feel more like they're being read than spoken. The friend who loaned it to me said it felt a bit too British, I'm not sure that's the problem but I can see what he means. Often the movie felt like it was trying a little too hard, the score tended to telegraph and emphasize the jokes in a way I don't think was that helpful.
So, I don't think it's an adaptation that will really make people angry, it just isn't necessarily something you should go out of your way to get it unless you want to see a visual version of the book or have a bunch of people to watch it with. I think it's probably okay for people that haven't read the book, not quite sure how switch the ordering would change your preferences though.
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