It's that time of the year again... Hogswatch. It bears a lot of similarities to your Christmas. However, The Hogfather(Santa) is being attacked. Death takes up his job, and we also follow a school of wizards... and these take up a lot of time and leave to relatively little pay-off. Then again, it is fun to see the odd gang of criminals(led by Mr. Teatime... pronounced Te-ah-tim-eh) undertake a creative plan to take care of the symbol of the end-of-the-year Christian celebration. You have probably figured out by now that this is set on Discworld(a disc-shaped planet carried by four elephants atop a turtle floating through outer space), Terry Pratchett's famous universe. I have not read much by him, but it was enough to know that imitating his writing style is impossible. It's far too literary. What they have done here is a good solution to this issue, and the humor(with sharp wit), quirk and commentary is largely intact. I have already touched upon the biggest problem with this... the pace is drab, and unless you *love* the comedy(with cleverness, silly stuff, verbal material and in general a "realistic" interpretation of a world with magic, complete with bureaucracy), you will not watch all three hours of this(even if the first of the two episodes do end with a cliffhanger). There are annoying characters, many jokes do not work and the FX range(the Grim Reaper's face is just a mask(the mouth doesn't even move!) and CGI is OK). The sets are nice. There is a dark tone, and bizarre and creepy instances in some of this. This has memorable bits as well, such as a computer run by ants and hamsters running in wheels. What I enjoyed the most about this was the exploration of faith and hope. This is a running theme, and the moral of this is smart and well-delivered. I personally found it worth the investment of time, but if you aren't interested in philosophy and religion, you may not. There is disturbing content and a little moderate language in this. I recommend this to fans of the author of the books. 7/10
Review of Hogfather
