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Hands down, one of the worst movies ever, probably in a tie with Star Wars Episode 1. The acting was horrible by all involved except maybe Dr. Who (The Elf King), and the dialogue was so poorly written that the actors probably were doomed to failure. I loved D&D and eagerly anticipated this movie. HUGE disappointment. I've only heard of one person who liked this movie and he used to watch it as a joke cause it is so bad.

Dungeons and Dragons
Did you see the size of that Dwarf?


This much anticipated movie of 2000, titled as the very popular role-playing game, should do much to further the question of ”what were they thinking?”

A great deal of the movie is spend in grandiose costume and CG sets with the actors, primarily one Jeremy Irons, as Profion an evil wizard, over acting in the most laughable manner. Which is odd because Jeremy Irons has never really done anything remotely laughable.

Irons had company in the theatre of the absurd acting style and that was with back up villain played by Bruce Payne as, Damodar in blue lipstick and shaved pate, delivering lines like a macho Tim-Frankenfurter-Curry.

And that is what is at odds with some of the primary components of this movie. I’m sure they did not want the villains to be completely laughable because they would have wanted them to generate enough fear or dread from the audience so they would be concerned for the welfare of the goods guys.

Then you have the good guys, Justin Whalin as Ridley and Marlon Wayans as Snails, who are suppose to have the kind of lighted hearted swashbuckling, devil-may-care, attitude which has been a foregone cliché’ in the forms of Han Solo and Indiana Jones. However in D&D the lead character, Ridley, was more like a generic Starbuck from the TV series Battlestar Galactica. Marlon Wayans as the reluctant Snails had lines that were suppose to be comic relief but were flat and lackluster.

I do want to say that I am a huge fan of the Sword and Sorcery genre. I have read many of the great books from Robert Jordan, “The Wheel of Time” series, Terry Brooks the “Shannara” series, and as well as the first three Dragon Lance novels by Margaret Weiss and Tracy Hickman. I really enjoyed those books. So don’t get me wrong I do love the genre and I know what it takes to make a good Sword and Sorcery story, yet I was expecting more out of this movie.

The character of the Empress Savina, played by Thora Birch was so visually reminiscent of Queen Amidala from the Phantom Menace that I could not help but be reminded of Amidala every time Birch was on the screen in those over the top costumes.

The story to D&D is real predictable. You know the standard, “OH my God the Princess, Empress-whatever- is in trouble and the evil mean guy is going to ruin everything for her and that will be terrible because she is so nice and concerned about her people-and she’s a hot looking unit to boot- so we have to get some reluctant swashbucklers to go through a whole bunch of cool exciting stuff and find a magical thing that will make everything better just in the nick of time before evil mean guy can make the Princess or I mean the Empress lose everything and cry her pretty Hollywood mascara saturated eyes out.

There is a scene in this movie where the character Ridley has to navigate a maze to obtain an important component in finding the magical “thing” to help the Princess err I mean the Empress. This was like a cross from “Return of the Jedi” and all The “Indiana Jones” flicks combined. I couldn’t believe there wasn’t one original pitfall in the whole thing.

You know I always thought Dragons were supposed to be formidable and intelligent. At least in all the books I read they were. Remember George Lucas’s early eighties production of “Dragon Slayer”? That dragon for its time was awesome and fearsome. The Dragons in this movie were so blatantly computer generated that there wasn’t anything remotely sentient or frightening about them. I don’t know if they want people to think that in the world of Dungeons and Dragons the Dragons look cool as unapologetically CG creations?

The grand finale battle scenes were disturbing in that I kept thinking, “What are those X-wing fighters flying around out there?” You see there were so many dragons flying around and spraying fire out causing other dragons to go crashing to earth like jets or X-wing fighters in a dogfight. It was very distracting, as it had no look of realism. It just didn’t feel like a movie that took place in the time of Dungeons and Dragons. By the way did you see the size of that Dwarf?

Don't waste your time with this one. I was so excited for this one to come out because the previews made it look so awesome! But the story was lame and so were the characters. Not to mention a bunch of hokey pokey magic that was anything but believable. The dragons are fairly real looking and the special effects and eye candy was done well. But other than that, this one isn't worth the money. Wait until it comes on TV.

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