Long ago when I saw the first preview for the Dungeons & Dragons movie, I got excited. First off, I love D&D, and second, it had Jeremy Irons, Bruce Payne, and Thora Birch. It looked like they were making a real class film. Somehow I managed not to know that Justin Whalin and Marlon Wayans were actually the main heroes of the film until I sat down in the theater. Wow, this movie sucked! It was so horribly campy. At least the special effects weren’t bad, and the scenes with the skies filled with hundreds of dragons were kinda neat.
Last year, when I heard they were making a sequel, I groaned. I actually looked into the film and found that while Bruce Payne had returned as Damodar, they’d managed to fill the rest of the cast with people I’d never heard of. I decided to pass. However, later a friend told me that it wasn’t that bad, it was even good. So, I dropped it into the Netflix queue and waited for it to be released.
This weekend, I finally got the movie and watched it. About the best review I can give is: At least Justin Whalin and Marlon Wayans weren’t in it.
First off, the special effects were not good. Ever watch TV shows like Charmed? The computer generated stuff looks fine, but when they put it together with the live action it doesn’t mesh well. They don’t touch in the right places, actions and reactions aren’t timed correctly. It just makes you increasingly aware that the person and the monster were never actually in the same room.
Second, and this is both a praise and a slam, this movie was exactly like a gaming session of D&D. The good part is that the story elements were pretty cool, it was like I was flipping through one of the old AD&D campaign modules reading about the kingdom and the towns, all the people and the history. The bad part… the dialogue. It was like someone had literally set a tape recorder down on the table while a group of guys played this module. When one of the characters died, I could almost here his player saying, “What? You’re going to bury me? Come on! There has to be a temple around here when I can be resurrected! Come on! You know what? Screw you guys!” and then he takes his Cheetoes and Mountain Dew and goes home.
This is one of those movies that seems to have so much potential going for it, but loses because the budget is a little too small and the script writer can’t lay off the wooden trite dialogue.
I think for the first time ever on one of my web reviews I’m actually going to say… Stay away from this movie. Its just not worth it.