Tales from Earthsea (2006)

I've not read any of the works that the film is based on, namely Ursula K. Le Guin's Earthsea books and Hayao Miyazaki's The Journey of Shuna manga, so I'm not able to determine if the reason that the film fails to excite is due to an absence of same in the source texts or if it's the fault of the adaptation, but I do feel that the criticisms singling out Dir. Gorō Miyazaki were grossly unfair. It's a weak story in a boring, overused fantasy setting and he didn't take many risks, but labelling him 'worst director' of 2006 is frankly ridiculous. Even if Gorō had risked the ire of his judgemental father by daring to push the Ghibli envelope into areas new, it wouldn't have helped the plodding story any.

2½ true names out of 5