This film is ironically brought to us by the same production company that would bring us The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit trilogies. This film, is un-ironically, not as good as even The Battle of Five Armies. By 2000, the sword and sorcery craze of the 1980's was a distant memory with only smoldering embers stoked by Harry Potter (yes, I know Harry Potter isn't technically sword and sorcery, don't @ me) and direct to video releases before being later brought back to life by the aforementioned opus of one Peter Jackson.
This film, however, is an enigma. It's an enigma primarily because of why anyone thought that any of this was remotely a good idea. The best way to describe it, as given to me by EpicApathy (that handsome devil) is that it is a movie of improbabilities. Every single thing that could have been a bad choice was made, and it inevitably all went horribly, horribly wrong. It was as if someone had set a train wreck on fire, and the train was filled with glitter...and feces.
I know I don't post as much of it as often as I used to (MadCap's Tabletop Tales will be making a return at some point in the future, by the way), but I am actually a fan of table top RPGing and of Dungeons & Dragons in particular. Needless to say, a Dungeons & Dragons movie would be an exciting thing for me. Would be.
Wooooooooooooooooould be.
They fucked up.
They fucked up hard.
There is so much of this film that it's possible (and probable!) to criticize: the casting, the awful CGI, the costuming, the plot, the fact that the script was greenlit, the fact that production was not immediately halted and ceased the minute Marlon Wayans showed up (yeah, that seems like a casting complaint, but it warrants its own spot), just...everything. Absolutely everything that could go wrong did.
So put on your personal protective equipment kids, and not just because of the Coronavirus (topical!), here's Dungeons & Dragons.
The scene is set in the land of Izmir, a land where mages rule over the non-magical folk and a-oh, what? You wanted a movie set in Greyhawk or the Forgotten Realms or the world of Eberron? Yeah, no, instead we get the brand new setting of Izmir, because that's what fans wanted to see rather than at the very least their favorite locations represented in some way. While I know we wouldn't likely see characters from those locations (I've long since come to peace with the fact we'll never have a Drizzt Do'Urden movie), that would at least have been something to connect this to the larger worlds of the game.
I know that seems like I'm just complaining about "they changed it, now it sucks", but it wasn't as if their weren't multiple campaign worlds in Dungeons & Dragons back in 2000 they could have drawn from (yes, I know Eberron didn't exist until 2003. Bite me) and they just decided to forgo all that and wipe the slate clean. This could work, of course, but they decided to go with a setting that is poorly explained and it suffers a lot because of that, seeing as we have no investment in it. The tag line "This is no game" is appropriate, largely because this movie has very, very little to do with the game.
I'm just saying, a Spelljammer ship wouldn't have killed them.
In the beginning, we are introduced to our main villain and the only enjoyable part of this entire movie - Profion, played by Jeremy Irons. Given that Jeremy Irons is Jeremy Irons, it's almost impossible to take him seriously as a villain, but damn if it isn't fun to watch him not only chew the scenery but inhale the entire fabric of reality in every single scene that he's in. Profion, along with his henchman Damodar (Bruce Payne), is attempting to control a gold dragon with a magical scepter he's created. This fails, but does manage to set a river on fire.
Thus, fitting of Profion's level of subtlety.
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| "Awww! It's a +2? I wanted a +3!" |
We later get a taste of Izmir politics as Profion and the Empress Savina (Thora Birch) debate giving non-mages the same rights as mages. How exactly this works is never really explained or detailed, nor do we see any real evidence of the oppression of non-mages, so it's especially weird. Also, Thora Birch is so out to lunch that it isn't even funny. I get that this was relatively early in her career and this likely isn't on her resume, but she really doesn't seem like she could be giving any less of a damn about anything going on.
Apparently, the Council of Mages (led by Profion) wants to take away Savina's scepter that allows her to control gold dragons. She and Profion both start seeking out another scepter that commands red dragons. I don't know if there was an official equivalent of this in D&D back at the time the movie was made, but I don't recall such an item existing and cannot imagine dragons would allow such a thing to exist, if it did exist at all being that even good dragons are extremely prideful, but never mind.
If you find this to be incredibly boring, you aren't alone. It also doesn't actually factor into anything but the final battle, so the scenes are essentially pointless beyond telling us that the Empress exists.
During/after all this, we're introduced to our leads...two of which I've been avoiding. A pair of thieves by the name of Ridley (played by Justin Whalin) and Snails (played by...Marlon Wayans), who decide the best thing to do in a mage-centric society is to break into a magic school and steal things, because of their astounding efforts to receive Izmir's first Darwin award. There, they run into Marina (Zoe McLellan) who ends up joining them after Damodar raids the magic school looking for information on the other rod.
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| Damodar regretted not heeding the warning to not drop the soap. |
Also, there's a dwarf who ends up joining them because party balance! We don't even get his name except in a deleted scene, because he's literally not that important to the adventure. Almost as if he's the representation of a player who got to the session too late and lazily threw a fighter together.
THAT'S RIGHT, CLINT! I'M CALLING YOU OUT!
...apologies to everyone who is not Clint, but he had it coming.
Anyway, now all they need is a cleric and they're good to go.
...god, I can't imagine how they'd have messed up clerics in this movie.
...oh, right, we have the Tom Baker cameo to come.
From there, the movie progresses more or less like a Dungeons & Dragons campaign would, just a really not great one. There's a magic map that will lead them to where an artifact that they need is. There's a bit where the Thieves' Guild runs Ridley through a rejected American Ninja Gladiator course with a Raiders of the Lost Ark theme to get a maguffin (also a Richard O'Brien cameo). There's Tom Baker showing up right the hell out of nowhere as an Elven King for his aforementioned cameo. There's Norda (Kristen Wilson), an elven ranger who sort of works for him but also works for Savina and ends up joining the group. There's the out of nowhere romance between Ridley and Marina, which doesn't work because it has no set up and neither of them have any real chemistry.
But (in positive news) there's the bit where Snails dies, murdered by Damodar. While the film tries to set this up as some tragic and terrible moment, any time I think about it, I immediately hear Freddy Mercury crooning the chorus of We Are The Champions. No, Justin Whalin doing his passable for early 2000's WB crying does not make me feel anything. Snails is, like most Marlon Wayans roles, really really annoying and something that drags down pretty much any film he's in. Unfortunately, this is a film that even a Marlon Wayans performance couldn't actually make worse.
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| Glorious, glorious ham! |
This never happens in the film, by the way.
It all ends with a massive battle where they laughably try to convince us that Justin Whalin could take Bruce Payne in a fight (no, I don't care if he has a magic sword) and Thora Birch makes a gold dragon eat Profion. Also, at some point, Ridley destroys the Rod because of its corrupting influence. I guess. Like I said, despite the spoopy skeleton giving the warning, nothing seems to come of that curse thing.
Then comes the ending that leaves things open for a sequel, and is by far one of the most utterly baffling moments I've ever seen put to film. Ridley pays his respects at Snails' grave, putting the Eye of the Dragon on it...which causes Snails' name to disappear from the rock. Norda tells Ridley not to question his gift and all four in attendance disappear to somewhere where Snails is apparently waiting for them.
...so he survived? Are they going to heaven? Is the Eye of the Dragon merely an Izmirian enthusiasm for a bad drug trip? I don't know and, in the end, I don't care. Apparently, neither did the people who made this movie or the ones who made its in-name only sequels Wrath of the Dragon God and The Book of Vile Darkness.
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| "Wait, in Elvish, the name of Corellon begins with an 'I'!" |
Okay, Bruce Payne did come back for Wrath, but that's a story for another day (I haven't seen it or Book at the time I'm typing this review).
Let's get this out of the way right now: just in case there was any question in your mind, the movie is just absolute garbage. Calling it Dungeons & Dragons is really just a cheap shot at brand recognition and most undeservedly so. There's so little from the game here that it feels almost like an afterthought, as if New Line realized they had a steaming pile of crap on their hands, but had to give it a name that would put butts in seats.
Director Courtney Solomon, someone who has been involved in table top gaming, claims that he was forced to use an older script, that both the film studio and TSR/Wizards of the Coast interfered heavily and his being forced to direct as well as produce by his investors all dragged the movie down considerably from what he originally wanted. Given that it was his first attempt at directing a major motion picture and he didn't actually want to do it, I do feel a little bad about reaming the film so hard or, at the very least, reaming him for it. Unfortunately, bad direction isn't all this film has going against it, so the blame cannot be laid squarely at his feet.
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| Yaaaaawn, Can I go be in Ghost World now? |
The casting in particular ranges from bland to insulting to gloriously laughable. Nobody fits in this film in the least. Thora Birch spends the entire film half asleep, Bruce Payne takes...the...time...to...stretch...out...his...syllables like he's Alan Rickman going through elocution lessons, Marlon Wayans mugs the camera in every scene and is the most annoying thing since Matthew Lillard in Hackers, and Justin Whalin...
Look, I don't get how Justin Whalin is a movie star. Don't get me wrong, he seems like a nice enough guy, I just really don't get what people see in him. Also, since the last production he worked on was in 2009 (as of this writing), I guess Hollywood finally didn't see anything in him either. He is just so incredibly flat as Ridley, giving no real life or emotion to the character at all. He's far from the only one, but it's particularly of note because he's the lead. He's the one that we're supposed to follow and care about through his adversity and joy to see him triumph.
And we just...don't. At all.
Justin Whalin is a bland, generic brown-haired white guy. Whoopie? I guess that means I'm getting representation in film?
It's very clear that the only person having fun here is Jeremy Irons playing Profion as the over the top, ranting madman, spouting off such memorable quotes as "I CAN USE EVERY OUNCE OF YOUR RAAAAAAGE! ADADADADADADADA!!!!" and "LET THEIR BLOOD RAAAAAAAAAAAAAAIN FROM THE SKYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!!!!!" and so on. Likely he's happy for the paycheck as well as the full course meal that he got from all the scenery he digested. However, like I said before, this makes it nigh-impossible to act like he's anyone we're supposed to be intimidated by.
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| Just a shot in the dark here, but I don't think anything in this scene is actually there. |
The CGI is 20 years old (at the time of this writing), sure, but it doesn't look good even by the standards of then and it certainly hasn't aged well. The dragons in particular look atrocious, like something that belongs more in Mortal Kombat Annihilation than it does in a movie that was, again, brought to us by New Line Cinemas.
...what's that?
Oh, Annihilation was actually brought to us by New Line?
Oh...
Oh, no...
On the converse side, the practical effects aren't any better. In particular, the maze Ridley has to enter to get the Eye of the Dragon is very appropriately dinged by my American Ninja Gladiator joke earlier, seeing as the whole thing is about that level of production value. The Halloween lawn decoration skeleton is something that would have been laughed off the set of Tales from the Crypt.
This whole film is just the perfect storm of bad, bad choices: a movie of improbabilities. A movie where every choice was wrong and it all coalesced into a gigantic, steaming pile of crap. It's honestly a shock that this didn't outright kill the sword and sorcery genre, and it likely would have if New Line hadn't busted out Fellowship of the Ring just a year later. It is absolutely, entirely, completely awful.
But, what if I told you that it isn't the worst of the genre?
Oh, yes, I'm going there. There are films that are far, far worse than Dungeons & Dragons in the sword and sorcery genre.
Next time, as Sword and Sorcery 2020 continues, we'll be getting into one.
Pray for me...I'm gonna need it.
Dungeons & Dragons is brought to us by Silver Pictures and New Line Cinema.
For the latest from the MadCapMunchkin, be sure to follow him on Twitter @MadCapMunchkin.
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