Ow! My brain!
So, I finally watched Dungeons & Dragons, the movie. Oh, holy hell was it bad. And I watched it knowing it was bad. But it's depths of badness sunk even farther than I'd expected. It's the poster movie for everything you should never do when telling a story. I'm not sure it got anything right. Well, no, it surely had to have gotten something right, if only by accident, but at present I'm a loss as to what that might have been.
I'm not enough of a D&D geek to have every spell, creature, and item in the books memorized, but I didn't recognize anything in the movie as originating from the game. Er, perhaps I should say I didn't recognize anything as specific to D&D. There were dragons, after all, and thieves, and a thieves guild, and magic users, and an elf and a dwarf. But all of those things are stock fantasy. The magic system was unrecognizable, and the magic users were "mages," not "wizards" or "sorcerers." ... Though there may be mages in D&D...somewhere. And, I don't know, perhaps the magic system is recognizable to people who've used different sourcebooks than I'm familiar with. But if a D&D player looks at movie supposedly based on the game/game worlds and goes "What is this shit?" you've done something wrong. And, no, the fact that they refer to the mage as "low level" does not help.
The main characters are two thieves, a mage, a dwarf, and an elf. One of the thieves existed solely to provide (bad) comic relief and die of plot complications. (No, really, he died for no reason. None. Unless his character was really meant to be that stupid.) The other thief was the designated hero, destined hero (never explained, by the way, beyond the occasional "only he is meant to do _____") The mage spent most of the movie doing no magic, with no explanation of why. Which was doubly odd considering that her introduction showed that she knew several useful spells, one of which was never seen again, no matter how many times it would have been useful. The dwarf existed to...um...to...be a dwarf? (Seriously, I've got nothing. His character could be cut and no one would notice.) The elf was around to be a tracker (of course) and save the hero when he really ought to have died. (Apparently, being stabbed in the chest is really quite survivable if you've got The Fourth Doctor around to do a laying on of hands.)
The plot was less coherent than a D&D campaign run by a hyperactive chimpanzee. There were dragon control rods, a power hungry wizard mage who wanted to overthrow the Empress (who wanted to change the laws so everyone was equal...and, no, I don't know how that's supposed to work in a stereotypical fantasy setting), a death maze that made about as much sense as the corridor of doom in Galaxy Quest, and an evil henchman with blue lips. Oh, and the hero was apparently the chosen one, just for the heck of it. But I'm not really sure what the plot actually was. It seemed to be a race to get the second dragon control rod (even though they knew it was evil) and then destroy it dramatically so the villain could be eaten by a dragon which may...or may not have been under the control of the other rod. There was also something in there about dragons being necessary for magic, which suggested that the rods were a bad idea in the first place, never mind that both villains and heroes used them at the climax. Ah, well, good triumphed and the Empress decreed everyone free (and I still don't know how that's supposed to work). And then the main characters (including the dead one) turned into glowy balls of light and zipped off.
...
Oh dear god, does that mean they ascended!? *dies*
*revives*
Okay, the movie would be great fun to mock with friends, but as entertainment in the normal sense it fails. Sure, there are worse movies. I mean, this movie may be abysmal, but it's the funny kind of abysmal. Still, most of the D&D campaigns I've played in would have made a better script. I was even in one where the wizard was periodically spell-less, but, hey, we had an actual reason - she couldn't do magic without her spellbook. Sadly, said wizard was more useful without her spellbook than the movie's mage was with her bag of magic dust.
So, unless you're planning a mocking party with friends, do not succumb to curiosity and watch this movie.
I'm not enough of a D&D geek to have every spell, creature, and item in the books memorized, but I didn't recognize anything in the movie as originating from the game. Er, perhaps I should say I didn't recognize anything as specific to D&D. There were dragons, after all, and thieves, and a thieves guild, and magic users, and an elf and a dwarf. But all of those things are stock fantasy. The magic system was unrecognizable, and the magic users were "mages," not "wizards" or "sorcerers." ... Though there may be mages in D&D...somewhere. And, I don't know, perhaps the magic system is recognizable to people who've used different sourcebooks than I'm familiar with. But if a D&D player looks at movie supposedly based on the game/game worlds and goes "What is this shit?" you've done something wrong. And, no, the fact that they refer to the mage as "low level" does not help.
The main characters are two thieves, a mage, a dwarf, and an elf. One of the thieves existed solely to provide (bad) comic relief and die of plot complications. (No, really, he died for no reason. None. Unless his character was really meant to be that stupid.) The other thief was the designated hero, destined hero (never explained, by the way, beyond the occasional "only he is meant to do _____") The mage spent most of the movie doing no magic, with no explanation of why. Which was doubly odd considering that her introduction showed that she knew several useful spells, one of which was never seen again, no matter how many times it would have been useful. The dwarf existed to...um...to...be a dwarf? (Seriously, I've got nothing. His character could be cut and no one would notice.) The elf was around to be a tracker (of course) and save the hero when he really ought to have died. (Apparently, being stabbed in the chest is really quite survivable if you've got The Fourth Doctor around to do a laying on of hands.)
The plot was less coherent than a D&D campaign run by a hyperactive chimpanzee. There were dragon control rods, a power hungry wizard mage who wanted to overthrow the Empress (who wanted to change the laws so everyone was equal...and, no, I don't know how that's supposed to work in a stereotypical fantasy setting), a death maze that made about as much sense as the corridor of doom in Galaxy Quest, and an evil henchman with blue lips. Oh, and the hero was apparently the chosen one, just for the heck of it. But I'm not really sure what the plot actually was. It seemed to be a race to get the second dragon control rod (even though they knew it was evil) and then destroy it dramatically so the villain could be eaten by a dragon which may...or may not have been under the control of the other rod. There was also something in there about dragons being necessary for magic, which suggested that the rods were a bad idea in the first place, never mind that both villains and heroes used them at the climax. Ah, well, good triumphed and the Empress decreed everyone free (and I still don't know how that's supposed to work). And then the main characters (including the dead one) turned into glowy balls of light and zipped off.
...
Oh dear god, does that mean they ascended!? *dies*
*revives*
Okay, the movie would be great fun to mock with friends, but as entertainment in the normal sense it fails. Sure, there are worse movies. I mean, this movie may be abysmal, but it's the funny kind of abysmal. Still, most of the D&D campaigns I've played in would have made a better script. I was even in one where the wizard was periodically spell-less, but, hey, we had an actual reason - she couldn't do magic without her spellbook. Sadly, said wizard was more useful without her spellbook than the movie's mage was with her bag of magic dust.
So, unless you're planning a mocking party with friends, do not succumb to curiosity and watch this movie.