The land of Earthsea is out of balance. Haunted by grim premonitions, the king falls, slain by his son. The misguided and lost Prince Arren is taken in by the archmage Sparrowhawk, who hopes to bring him towards redemption and his true destiny. As the world crumbles around them, the pair relentlessly search for the source of the imbalance, a wicked wizard from Sparrowhawk's distant past.

Tales from Earthsea is a Ghibli adaptation of Ursula K. LeGuin's Earthsea books. Going from Howl's Moving Castle with its similar background to Earthsea seemed to be an attempt to move from strength to strength. But then something unexpected happened: Goro Miyazaki was named director. Goro, son of the famous Hayao, is a trained and talented architect and landscape designer and had most recently been curating the Studio Ghibli Museum. He was in an odd situation--he'd been around the studio his whole life and understood animation production well, but had never worked in it. Hayao, it was reported, wasn't wild about the choice and refrained from assisting with the film's production, firmly believing all the while that his son was not ready for this kind of responsibility.

The finished film did what Ghibli films typically do upon their domestic release, ie. making bank at the box office, but while its ticket sales were doing great, reception was decidedly mixed, and it's astoundingly easy to see why. Watching this film after having so many wonderful movies like Spirited Away, Kiki, Nausicaa, Totoro, Howl, The Cat Returns, etc. kinda left me mindblown, and not exactly in a good way. Goro's Earthsea is stiff, scattered and mediocre. It struggles to make sense, to provide entertaining dialogue and action and a clear plotline. It's borderline incoherent at times. We expect none of these things from Ghibli films, so watching this is surprising and instructive, but still deeply weird.

In a magical kingdom out of balance with the world, a dispirited young prince named Arren murders his father and flees in terror from his destiny. He's eventually taken in by the archmage Sparrowhawk, who seeks to restore balance to Earthsea. But why is the world out of balance? Because Sparrowhawk says so, that's why--we never get a clear explanation of what being "out of balance" really means. In their travels, the pair are harassed by a slaver named Hare, but soon come to seek refuge with Sparrowhawk's old friend Tenar. She introduces them to a mysterious young girl named Therru. Arren is angry and sad, and Therru is fearful and suspicious, but they slowly open up to each other. They'll have to rely on each other, to brace themselves with Arren's destiny and Therru's mysterious power, to face down the true threat to Earthsea's balance, the failed archmage Lord Cob.

This movie has men at arms, dragons, castles, swords, spells, all that good stuff. It has a wise old mentor and his stupid kid student, a gentle matron and a mysterious girl, a slimy henchman and a menacing wizard. All of the building blocks for a good adventure are right there, but what Goro lacks in making this film is the glue to put them all together. We learn very little about the characters, their pasts and their personalities. The book is bursting with neat ideas, such as the concept that people have common names and "true names", secret things of considerable power. True names come into play in the film, but are never explained. Cause and effect are tenuous in this movie, and the characters frequently seem to stop speaking to each other altogether, instead sounding like they're just standing there giving speeches to no one in particular. And yeah, every-goddamn-body gets a speech in this movie.

And I'm sorry, maybe it's just me, but it's so boring and unmemorable. It's a 75-minute adventure spread across an increasingly dreary 120 minutes, like a modest pat of cold butter destructively smashed and swiped against a large piece of warm bread. The camera is mostly static, with lots of medium shots of two characters interacting, long shots of travel and close-ups for the important dialogue. Every so often, the camera does break free of its shackles, but it happens so infrequently that it's startling when it does. It's as if Goro came into this film unfamiliar with the idea of really using the camera to tell the story.

It's not all bad news though. Goro has, in my estimation, a unique gift for really making scenery come alive in his works, particularly in the extravagant backgrounds. They bring to mind the great paintings of Maxfield Parrish--Miyazaki and his team don't have the famous artist's crispness, but they share his appreciation for light and shadow, lush green foliage and big Roman columns. One of Earthsea's central ideas is the vain struggle for eternal life. Sparrowhawk is intent on teaching Arren that this is futile, and there's a great scene where he explains that death is necessary to keep the life cycle going. "Would you bring the entire ocean to a standstill, just to save one wave?", he asks the disillusioned boy.

Regarding the vocal performances, I have to say that it was better in Japanese. The role of Sparrowhawk, the wise old archmage, is played by the late, great Bunta Sugawara, who made his name as a steely-eyed, violent and principled yakuza tough in the Battles Without Honour and Humanity films. He was a fine voice actor, but it's kinda weird--Sparrowhawk looks like him, in a way that I kept wondering if it was intentional or not. My other major comment on the Japanese cast is that the role of Cob is played by Yuko Tanaka. Cob's an androgynous man, and I don't always buy it when a woman plays a grown-ass man in anime, but I think it works well here. The dub features wholly forgettable performances by Matt Levin as Arren and Blaire Restaneo as Therru. Timothy Dalton is splendid as Sparrowhawk, the film's anchor, even though he doesn't have a lot to work with. Mariska Hargitay is alright as Tenar, but there's a part in the film where Tenar says "This reminds me of the tombs...", and I naturally assume she's talking about the Manhattan Detention Complex. Cheech Marin is fine as Hare, but his inclusion also feels like Disney probably just grabbed whoever was available at the time to round out the cast. The biggest strike against the dub is Willem Dafoe as Cob. Willem's normally a great actor, but in this film's dub, Cob really only ever sounds like Willem Dafoe trying to sound creepy, and it just doesn't work at all for the character.

Ghibli regular Joe Hisaishi and his distinctive, soaring musical scoring is absent from Tales from Earthsea. Tamiya Terashima does a decent job instead--his music is suitably sweeping and evocative, just not very memorable. I also have a problem with the character designs, by Akihiko Yamashita. He also did character designs for Howl's Moving Castle, and I thought his work was fine in that film, but here, the characters seem simplistic, not fully realized, almost like discount versions of Howl designs. They look weird, especially when they're expressing anger. Artistically, the best stuff in the movie is going on in the background.

I look at Tales from Earthsea and can only conclude that it was a mistake to try and get Goro Miyazaki to make the kind of film that his father might've made. Hayao spent years trying to convince LeGuin to let him adapt Earthsea, but when she finally relented, he was busy with Howl's Moving Castle. Producer Toshio Suzuki wasn't drastically wrong to appoint Goro as director, but the end result is a jumbled mess that doesn't play to his strengths or background. Happily, Goro's next film was much better.

We make fun of films like Origin ~Spirits of the Past~, Green Legend Ran and Brave Story for trying to mimic Ghibli films without really having the zest to nail the landing. Tales from Earthsea is in the same league as them despite literally being a Ghibli film. It walks like a Ghibli film, looks and sounds reasonably like a Ghibli film, but isn't the total package that the studio's other films are.