The book, at least my edition with translation by N. Rakhmanova and great stylized illustrations by Mikhail Belomkinsky is a pretty simple childish fairy tale, which hits you only at the end.



The film tries to start jovial, but even in the beginning it begins to have moody scenes and glimpses of epic pathos. Anyone who read the book was surprised when they decided to cut the film in half, but now they are making three out of a half-finger thick book? This movie adds some fanart prequel material, which is plain feels weird even outside of comparison with the book. I dunno, it is feature-length and it outright ends with nothing. It could've spend run-time given to fanart on actually deepening the characters. A cohort of dwarves with stupid names was appropriate to a children book, where the whole point was of reader not caring to remember them. This super cereal adult movie has them just as unmemorable in the end. The best character is the goblin king, but also he is illogical.

Extended scenes are mostly stupid comedy, but they do actually improve characters.