Dungeons & Dragons (2000)

Movie Info

Oh yeah…going to ride this dragon!

Profion (Jeremy Irons) is poised to take the Empire of Izmir and all he needs is a scepter which controls red dragons.  As Empress Savina (Thora Birch) argues for equality among the people, a thief named Ridley (Justin Whalin) and his friend Snails (Marlon Wayans) break into the Magic School and find themselves teamed with a young mage named Marina (Zoe McLellan) who has the key to finding the scepter.  Pursued by Profion’s henchman Damodar (Bruce Payne), Snails, Marina, and Ridley must stop Profion before it is too late for the kingdom.

Directed by Courtney Solomon, Dungeons & Dragons is based on the popular roleplaying game which first premiered in 1974.  The movie was a critical and financial failure.

The only good Snails is a dead Snails

I like sword and sorcery movies to some extent and grew up with Dungeons & Dragons.  The prospect of a big screen adventure was both exciting and scary…scary was the end result.  Dungeons & Dragons was awful.

The story is a typical sword and sorcery adventure with a thief becoming a hero and a group of young heroes trying to fight old power.  The script for the movie cannot make it past the clunky dialogue and the movie tries to be too complex with too many “side missions” for the characters.

I see you Jimmy Olsen!

The cast for the film doesn’t help the poor script.  Jeremy Irons is obviously the anchor of the movie but with his acting skill demonstrated in the past, this movie must have just been for the money because he is awful (though he does eat up scenes…I guess Dead Ringers and Reversal of Fortune do not get you Dungeons & Dragons cash).  As bad as Irons is, he’s easy matched by the stone faced Thora Birch and the dull lead played by Justin Whalin.  It is fortunate that Marlon Wayans is killed, but it is too little and too late since he’s an annoyance through most of the film.

I will take the check!

The movie’s visuals are pretty poor.  The movie came out in 2000 and should have looked better than it did.  The CGI dragons are pretty weak and the movie didn’t even really call for many special effects.  I wish with a rich world like Dungeons & Dragons that the heroes had more variety and were more interesting that even something like Star Wars…but they didn’t even have the variety of a film made twenty-three years earlier.

The movie does have a so bad its good status.  The plot, acting, and look of the film really isn’t as good as it should be and it feels much cheaper than it should have looked.  The Dungeons & Dragons cartoon was a favorite of mine as a kid…and the movie would have been better if they had just adapted that.  With a big budget and some good people behind it, Dungeons & Dragons should have been a good film…instead, it is a laugh.  Dungeons & Dragons was followed by a 2005 made-for-TV movie called Dungeons & Dragons:  Wrath of the Dragon God.