Reviewing Movies

A four hour mini-series loosely based on a set of fantasy books. In magic as in most things a little knowledge is a dangerous thing. Knowledge and power without wisdom can prove one’s undoing. Just because one knows how to do a thing and has the capacity to perform the act doesn’t mean it is necessarily wise to do so. How many bodybuilders along with amateur and professional athletes alike have used performance enhancing drugs to mold magnificent physiques, great endurance, and recuperative powers only to pay the price in mental instability, heart disease, and other health problems. No one should perform any act or ask any question unless one is sure of the answer and the consequences of that action. No drug is without its side-effects and one must be certain the good it may do outways its consequences. The scientists who discovered radioactivity died of the cancer it caused, those who developed nuclear weapons discovered the ‘killer of worlds’. Genie’s that are let out of bottles are not so easily put back inside.

Shawn Ashmore plays Ged the impetuous mage and Chris Gauthier who later played the chef in Eureka plays his buddy Vetch who looks at everything for its potential as something to eat. Kristin Kreuk, Lana Lang in Smallville plays the Druidess, Tenar and Alan Scarfe, the archmagus. The movie is more a cult of personalities than the story of Earthsea and magic. The young magus spends a great deal of time sailing among the islands of the archipelago in a tiny skull. There is a great deal more action than plot line development, very little magic, no philosophy, and an all too typical Hollywood ending. Mages don’t usually get the girl, or as in this case the priestess.