Dungeons & Dragons (2000)

Highly Overrated But Still Good

I cannot think of one single thing that I would change about this film. The acting is incomparable, the directing deft, and the writing poignantly brilliant.

Blistering performances.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

I found this film in a charity shop and forced my D&D group to watch it with some drinks. We had an absolute blast.An utterly horrendous movie, and yet we were pissing ourselves laughing the entire time.Would recommend this film be watched with a lot of alcohol and some good company, you won't regret it.

RELEASED IN 2000 and directed by Courtney Solomon, "Dungeons & Dragons" chronicles events in the kingdom of Izmer where the idealistic Empress (Thora Birch) advocates equality between the mages and commoners while the power-mad Profion (Jeremy Irons) plots to overthrow the Empress with the help of his formidable henchman Damodar (Bruce Payne). A ragtag team is assembled to save Izmer by apprehending the Eye of the Dragon: Two thieves (Justin Whalin and Marlon Wayans), a beautiful mage apprentice (Zoe McLellan), a dwarf (Lee Arenberg) and an elf girl (Kristen Wilson).The first shot with Irons hamming it up as the diabolical Profion made me bust out laughing. In other words, the movie telegraphs from the get-go that it's not to be taken seriously. If you can roll with the campiness, this is an amusing throwaway fantasy flick. Imagine the gaudiness of "Star Wars" (1977) if the story were transplanted to a Medieval-like kingdom where dragons & magic are reality and you'd have a good idea of what "Dungeons & Dragons" has to offer. This was a theatrical release that cost a whopping $45 million, but totally bombed at the box office. The 2005 sequel "Wrath of the Dragon God" (with only Bruce Payne returning as Damodar) cost just $15 million and is slightly better because the creators took the material seriously, but it's decidedly TV fantasy fare.The film scores pretty well on the female front with the winsome McLellan and cutie Birch. Whalin and Wayans are entertaining as the two main protagonists, if you can get past their goofiness. People love to hate Snails (Wayans), but I found him to be a likable, amusing character. THE MOVIE RUNS 1 hour 47 minutes and was shot in the Czech Republic (Kutná Hora and Prague). WRITERS: Topper Lilien and Carroll Cartwright. GRADE: C

I originally caught this film at the cinema during the height of my enthusiasm for the tabletop game called Dungeons & Dragons that this film shares its title with. The trailers looked interesting and, of course, the marketing made sense since this was probably Newline's build up to Lord of the Rings the following year. Maybe that left no money or creative juice for this film - what ever the reason for the sheer badness of Dungeons & Dragons, I'm profoundly grateful that Newline did not take the same approach to making Lord of the Rings.Where to start?! The characters are really not characters at all but just archetypes and clichés thrown together. It's a little like the laziest ever roleplaying session: here's a thief, here's a mage, here's a dwarf. What's your thief like? He's black and he steals stuff. What's the mage like? He's evil. They are like cardboard cutouts with no life or chemistry.The plot is infantile and generic at the same time. Evil wizard wants to rule the world because of his lust for power and the characters (for lack of another word) join forces because they are there and need stuff to do. Again, this reminds me of a lazy roleplaying session. They have no motivation beyond the fact that it says so in the script. So, I was not invested in any of them and could not have cared less if they lived or died.The acting was awful: Stiff in most cases but, as for Jeremy Irons, completely over the top. I suspect he worked with what he had in terms of script. Still, my award for cringe-worthiness goes to Bruce Payne for playing Damodar as both stiff AND over-the-top.Considering the breath-taking visuals of Lord of the Rings only a year later, the visual effects of this film are disappointing to say the least. It has dragons even right there in its title but the ones you get to see look more like hand puppets than anything else! Costume and set designs are like cheap Xena-rip offs. Some weapons literally look like plastic toys.Finally, I was especially unhappy with how the film turned out because I had been looking forward to seeing one of my favourite games come to life. In this film (like in many game adaptations) I see no appreciation of the source material. I'll admit there are dragons and also a few dungeons in a generic high fantasy setting with elves, dwarfs and orcs. That's where any similarity ends. It was at its worst a quick cash grab with the name of a big franchise and at best an attempt to show that Newline could also do fantasy. I assume it left both fans of the game and fans of fantasy films in general dissatisfied. Recently, I found it again on Netflix but after watching some five minutes I remembered how bad it was and stopped. No need to waste another 107 minutes of my life.

I agree with everybody: this movie was terrible. But it was so bad that I found it hilarious to watch for a while (I did not watch it to the end though). The acting of every actor in this crap-fest was unbelievably bad. How can this even be?Another thought: I ask myself who ran away with the 45 mio that were supposedly spent for making this movie. Yet another thought: really bad movies have at least one merit. They inspire the IMDb users to create very entertaining roastings. I am not a D&D-player, so I could not be disappointed. I understand that a fan might not see it so mellow.Unfortunately I have to write 10 lines though I have nothing to add. Well, the weather is beautiful.