Dungeons & Dragons: Wrath of the Dragon God (2005)

Sadly Over-hyped

Overrated and overhyped

everything you have heard about this movie is true.

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

RELEASD TO TV IN 2005 and directed by Gerry Lively, "Dungeons & Dragons: Wrath of the Dragon God" amasses a good group of protagonists who seek to find some magical black orb and save their kingdom, Ismir, from the wrath of a malevolent dragon slumbering in a nearby mountain. This involves an evil wizard, Damodar, played by Bruce Payne, who is the only one to return from the first D&D film from 2000. I liked the whole adventure-quest aspect of the story and the colorful group of characters who join together to defeat the wizard and save the kingdom: A noble ex-knight statesman (Mark Dymond), a cleric (Steven Elder), a rogue (Tim Stern), a hot warrior woman (Ellie Chidzey) and an elf girl mage (Lucy Gaskell). The stunning Clemency Burton-Hill is also on hand as the nobleman's wife who does her part to help save Ismir. The towering Chidzey (5'11") is nice & curvy rather than unappealingly thin, like the stereotypical model. Although I've never played Dungeons & Dragons, I read one of the books years ago and numerous others from the sword & sorcery genre, especially Conan, Gor and ERB, not to mention numerous sword & sorcery flicks (some being sword & NO sorcery, like "First Knight" and "King Arthur," lol). Anyway, this second "Dungeons & Dragon" movie works just good enough for me to give it a decent grade. Although it was relatively low-budget (I'm actually surprised it cost $15 million) it's generally superior to the typical Syfy fare and thoroughly austere compared to the campy first film. I liked how the writers actually threw in some nice character bits, like the developing friendship/respect of the rogue and the barbarian. They should've included more."Dungeons & Dragons" is a fitting title because you get your fill of both. There are numerous dungeon scenes with torches and secret passageways, as well as two impressive dragon sequences, one featuring an ice dragon and another with the mountain dragon who looks like Satan himself. On top of this you get some quality forest locations and Medieval sets.THE FILM RUNS 105 minutes was shot in Lithuania. WRITERS: Robert Kimmel, Lively (the director) and Brian Rudnick.GRADE: B-

We're talking fantasy on a bargain-basement level here, of the kind not seen since the woeful days of BEASTMASTER 3 and KULL THE CONQUEROR. With a threadbare narrative propelling along a tired old story about "collect X magical relic of old and destroy X evil wizard in the process", WRATH OF THE DRAGON GOD is a walking cliché through and through.With copious nods to Lord of the Rings along the way, this film follows a party of adventurers as they set out on a seemingly impossible quest and...yep, I'm bored already. Although I haven't seen the original DUNGEONS & DRAGONS film, I can't imagine that it was much of an improvement on this. When a movie's sole actor of note is hammy B-movie stalwart Bruce Payne (PASSENGER 57), you know you're in trouble, and the would-be thespians appearing here instill zero confidence in the viewer. This is a cast picked for their looks alone, which occasionally pays off (Ellie Chidzey's female barbarian is a pleasure to watch) but often fails (Clemency Burton-Hill's wizard would look more at home pushing a pram around Bluewater).There are set-pieces galore, from a lich ambush in the woods to the battle with an ice dragon in a ruined village. Along the way, there's some dungeon adventuring stuff, a magic battle and a supposedly full-scale dragon attack climax. The CGI effects are never less than awful, but even worse are the rubbery masks worn by the likes of the guy playing the lich...absolutely terrible, Halloween-party stuff. As for Payne, he hams it up as you'd expect but would be more suited to a pantomime role instead of this dreck. Give WRATH OF THE DRAGON GOD a miss if you respect this genre even a tiny little bit.

Of course, by "first Dungeons & Dragons film" I mean that horrible piece of drek released in 2000. This made for television movie manages to trump its immediate predecessor in almost every regard, though Bruce Payne is *still* horrible as Damodar.Indeed, the largest failing of the film is reintroducing Bruce Payne (whose acting was horrible) as Damodar. I can't help but think how much better the film could have been had they ditched the high-priced Payne, replaced him with a better (albeit lesser known) actor, and used the money saved to foot the bill for better CGI.Where Wrath of the Dragon God succeeds is in its faithful portrayal of many common D&D tropes, from actual dungeons and dragons to common monsters (e.g., Lich) and the stereotypical D&D adventuring party. If you listen carefully, you'll even find some nice (and appropriate) references to classic AD&D adventure locations.Likewise, the quality of acting in Wrath of the Dragon God is markedly better than than displayed in the first D&D move, despite this film's cast being composed primarily of unknown actors. Indeed, Tim Stern, Mark Dymond, and Ellie Chidzey are actually quite *good* in their respective roles as the stereotypical Fighter, Thief, and Barbarian.Finally, while the plot here is nothing to write home about in terms of originality (which itself may be a clever homage to D&D adventure modules), it is at least comprehensible — further, it manages to rise to the level of "entertaining" at times (usually when focused on the exploits of the adventuring party).If Gerry Lively had canned Bruce Payne and been given the same budget that Courtney Solomon frittered away on the first film, I can only assume that Wrath of the Dragon God would have been *great* rather than merely adequate (a measure of quality that the first film never came close to achieving).Seeing Wrath of the Dragon God outperform its big screen counterpart in almost every possible manner reminds me that, sometimes, the television screen is better than the silver screen for fantasy.

After being disgusted by the first D&D movie, I went into the Wrath of the Dragon God with trepidation. Even so, I tried to keep hope that the producers would make amends for their previous failure. Well, they honestly tried.... The action and CGI was much better, however there were many points where it was unbelievable. The ACTING was greatly improved. The story fit the D&D feel a little more. Being an AD&D player for many years now, I was still let down by the rudimentary knowledge the producers seem to have about D&D. I wish they would find some REAL actors, have a REAL adult story, and REALLY know their stuff when it comes to the D&D GAME ASPECTS. There are so many great things that D&D has as a game that could be put into a great movie... too bad no one can get their stuff together enough to do it.