Just perfect...

Good concept, poorly executed.

Absolutely the worst movie.

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

In Ankh-Morpork, there are vampires and werewolves. More importantly, the post office is a crumbling mess. Moist Von Lipwig (Richard Coyle) is a petty con man. He gets caught and Lord Vetinari (Charles Dance) hangs him to an inch of his life. Vetinari lets him off to head the defunct post office. Mr. Pump, a golem, is used as his unceasing guardian and parole officer. Groat and Stanley are the only two junior postmen. Their opposition is the Clacks which compost of countless light towers relaying messages run by the ruthless Reacher Gilt. Lipwig tries to modify Pump and goes to the Golem Trust. He finds Adora Belle Dearheart (Claire Foy) in mourning after her brother John Dearheart was killed on top of one of the Clacks towers.It's a wild, imaginative adaptation of this weird fantasy world. It's a wonder visually considering it's a TV show. I'm not terribly in love with these characters. Lipwig is too dumb at times, and too mean-spirited for too long. His first letter is a missed opportunity. There was no real reason for him to deliver it. There has to be a more compelling reason for a scheming, selfish conman to selflessly deliver the first letter. Inventing stamps is interesting. In addition, I'm uncertain about Adora Belle's character. She's very one dimensional and I would like her to be more. This is a nice wacky world and I would like to like the characters more.

People talk about the phenomenon of binge TV watching. I've been binge reading all of the Discworld books, all of which are on my shelf. That makes the second or third (or at least one fourth) time through. I had only seen the terrible "Color of Magic" and the worse "Hogfather" before, so had low expectations for this.Going Postal is true to the "look and feel" of the book. Of course, it doesn't stick to the plot, word for word. Of course, many of the characters are two dimensional. But then, the movie is made from pictures and the books are made from words. And words have power. It was a joy to watch. My wife didn't enjoy it nearly as much as I did, but that was probably because I kept telling her the difference between the book and the movie. And pointing out the similarity ("Honey, did you notice the vampire photographer? That's great, he really didn't add to the movie story line, but in the Discworld series...." And we're still married.Spoiler: Viewers should be aware that the movie pays homage to old time movies in a couple of ways. One controversial way is to make the banshee into a replica of Nosferatu. I think this was a misstep, but a minor and intriguing one.

"Going Postal" is a cringeworthy adaptation of Terry Pratchett's work for TV where every subtlety is lost, characters are utterly 2-dimensional, and music steamrolls you at every turn. Pratchett seems to have taken every cliché'd character imaginable (including the animated kitchen sink) and thrown them into a Steampunk "Christmas Carol". Vampires? Check. Werewolves? Check. Golems? Check. (And the Golem in question here is almost a direct rip-off of "Kryten" from "Red Dwarf".) But for all that "Going Postal" has that is unwelcome, it's conspicuously lacking two elements: a character that you can give a damn about, and a "McGuffin" that makes you care about what happens to them. "Going Postal" is a superficially clever premise that is utterly let down by a paper-thin script and made insufferable by treacly music and unnecessary voice-over. Give this one a WIDE miss.

I did like Hogfather and Colour of Magic too, but what made me like Going Postal best of all was that it was more solid in especially the story, pacing and acting departments. Not that the other two were bad in those categories, but they did have characters that weren't explored as well as they could have been or there were moments of sluggish pacing or forced dialogue.Going Postal could have easily had those problems but it didn't really. Of all the Sky/Pratchett adaptations it is the best paced overall, while the story even with the changes is compelling and the writing is playful and witty on the whole.The costumes are colourful and beautiful, and the sets and scenery are also stunning and the effects in general are above average though I wasn't crazy about the Banshee. The photography does very well to capture these lovely visuals, while the music is very good and the direction credible enough.The cast I feel is the best yet. Charles Dance, Richard Coyle and Steve Pemberton turn in great performances, and Claire Foy is also appealing and David Suchet is an interesting Gilt.All in all, I thoroughly enjoyed it, and while I liked all three Sky/Pratchett adaptations this one was the best. 9/10 Bethany Cox