Har, har, har. Sci Fi channel strikes again with another adaptation that sucks the big one. Not content with ruining Battlestar Galactica last year, they now present us with this most dire of literary conversions - The Legend of Earthsea.<br /><br />Now, I recall reading Wizard of Earthsea back in my childhood. But I can't recall anything much about it - too many other books since then. So I approached this adaptation with an almost unbiased view. However, despite not having any gripes against the film on the basis of "It's not like the books!", I do have a lot of grievances based on the fact that it's just total rubbish.<br /><br />First off, the acting. None of the actors were in any danger of drowning during the making of this show simply because they were all so horribly wooden and would have floated without a problem if they'd fallen in. My two personal favourites were the chap who played Ged's father and the King of something-or-other who wanted to rule the world.<br /><br />Ged's father delivered most of his lines atrociously badly. Especially when he was supposed to convey some sort of feeling at the time. The scene where Ged goes over the cliff saw him giving such a fake show of grief I expected the villagers to stare at him as strangely as if he had just burst out laughing.<br /><br />The King of god-knows was only slightly (and I mean very slightly) away from a mustachio-twirling villain. His overacting just got worse as the film went on. He was chewing up scenery at a ferocious rate of knots. Plus, his crown just looked pants. Like something you'd get out of a cereal box. But at least it distracted you from his agonizing mugging at the camera.<br /><br />Then there was the CGI. My pet-hate is CGI that doesn't look even remotely real and guess what? Earthsea has awful CGI in spades. The three standouts, though, are as follows.<br /><br />Firstly, any scene where the CGI map fades into the "real" world. Laughable. Reminded me of the old Hammer "Wolf-man" movies where Lon Chaney "slowly" changes into the wolf man. Not at all convincing there, but at least they had no technology as an excuse. Here it just looks as shoddy and rushed as it is.<br /><br />Next we have the scenes of the port (Couldn't tell where it was meant to be) which had piers and cranes and boats and all kinds of CGI things. They would have looked fantastic in any computer game I played oh.....five years ago. Here, they look like what they are...very cheap-ass CGI.<br /><br />And finally, the dragon. I haven't been so insulted by a CGI dragon since the Dungeons and Dragons movie. The fact that its size also seemed to change during its scenes was also totally risible. As for realism, forget it. This dragon is to realism as Barney is to dinosaurs.<br /><br />There were also a number of plot inconsistencies that sprang into glaring obviousness during my torturous observation of this film. Firstly, just how does an entire school of wizards, who control the winds (among other things) not manage to defeat a sea-borne armada of men by the simple expedient of, say... blowing them away? And the Gebbeth? What was that meant to be? Something scary I expect in the books. But here, we're treated to an actor who has a whole "Uncle Fester" thing going on. About as scary as Ronald McDonald. No... wait....Ronny is scary....I take it back... Unca Fester was less scary than Ronald. Laughable in fact.<br /><br />Final gripe. The costumes. What pantomime show did they steal these from? Despite the odd smear of dirt here and there there was something about these "outfits" that told you if you looked in the seams you'd find a shiny new care label. Maybe they got a job-lot of left-overs from "Hercules - The Legendary Journeys" - whatever, they are not good.<br /><br />Mercifully, the entire program is already fading into a murky haze. Which is a good thing, because the last thing I need when I get hold of the actual books to read is to have the awful scenes of this production spring into my mind's eye. That would be too much like a waking nightmare.<br /><br />Even as a non-Earthsea fan it had nothing to offer me that hasn't been done bigger, better and frankly, with downright more heart, elsewhere.<br /><br />Avoid!