Rating: 
Summary: My Power Is Growing Darker, My Lord!
Review: Keep rating 0 stars reviewer's as my power keeps growing stronger!
It's mine, all mine.
Rating: 
Summary: Terrible Acting, Cheesy Storyline, Great Fun!
Review: To preface this review - this movie is awful. The acting doesn't leave something to be desired, it's simply laughable. The storyline is predictable. So, why the 3?The story is "classically silly". You get silly things like a Dwarf that's always angry, an elf who thinks she's someone special, a young sorceress who is high and snooty, and a pair of thieves who are completely clueless. Combine this with scenes which are actually kind of cool - like in the Den of Thieves where he's going through all sorts of traps, and you end up with something that's one one hand sickening to the stomach and on the other a laugh riot. The negative reacton to this movie comes primarially from people who had high expectations. In an era where superhero movies were being released that didn't stink, special effects were becoming amazing, and D&D had recently made a revival - it's obvious why people expected this to be great! The movie also had a pretty good trailer... But then you get Jeremy Irons who played the evil wizard. While it's conceivable that a wizard this annoyingly stupid exists, it's hard to suspend disbelief. Then you've got the child empress. Okay first off, kids in leadership roles don't mess with modern ideals. So you give us a cheesy evil wizard opposed by a child empress whose morality far exceeds her time. Kids her age would be more likely to be yelling "off with her head, she stepped on dolly" than discussing the necessity of freedom for all. And the props look like cheap plastic toys. But all in all, if watched with the perspective of "humor value" it offers a bit of value in a "cult classic" sort of way. I'll watch it about once a decade but do not consider it an unwise purchase.
Rating: 
Summary: Horrible bad
Review: Not good. Not close to good. It's like a bad high school play. My son enjoyed all but the monsters-in-the-ears so it has some value ... just not much.
Rating:
Summary: I really tried...
Review: I really tried to watch this movie from beginning to end. For the fun of it. Really! I tried! It's bad. Bad, bad, bad! Not "laughably bad" or "so bad it was good". It's BAD! It doesn't even inspire Mystery Science Theater 3000 jokes at 3 a.m. after drinking to much Mountain Dew. Borrow it if you must, but don't waste a free rental on this one.
Rating:
Summary: Pathetic excuse for even a bad movie
Review: CONSENSUS of the 1st Dungeon & Dragons Movie:
Critics say this movie has a cheap look and is badly directed. Despite the presence of talented actors, the performances are really bad, and additionally, some people are offended at Marlon Wayans' character, calling it a racist throwback to black stereotypes. Here is a link for the proposed new D&D movie from Variety Magazine With the release of Lord Of The Rings, we (D&D Fans) were FINALLY able to come out of the closet. It is a glowing moment for us after years of ridicule from co-workers... family.... peers.... etc from the age of 12. The Dungeon & Dragon's movie released in 2000 only ADDED to that pain! It's racist character as pointed out in the link did not help matters. After watching LOTR with people unfamiliar with Wizards of The Coast products, I was able to broach the topic and get some of my friends interested in playing the D&D game. Now we are going to be LAUGHED at ONCE AGAIN with ANOTHER WRETCHED D&D movie... somebody has got stop this movie from using the D&D name... In case anyone has forgotten the revenue the 1st movie pulled in... here is a link.. Pathetic.... shocked it even made that much. The ONLY amusement it has given us as fans is it's RIDICULE factor.... and even that pales after a minute or so. I'm baffled that a sequel is being made.
Rating:
Summary: I don't know what to say.....but here goes...
Review: I am so thankful I saw this on a movie channel and didn't waste any cash trying to watch this plotless piece of trash. Where do I start?? I'll just spew out a few things that caught my attention. I don't play the actual D&D game, but I'm pretty sure that those who do play were embarrassed and ashamed. What was with the actors?? Justin Whalin was pretty pathetic, and Marlon Wayans wasn't as funny as he could have been, and I was so not moved at his lame attempt to act out a touching death scene. Zoe whats-her-face was annoying and the romance between her character and Justin's character was predictable....but so was the rest of the movie. The only reason that 'Dark' elf was put in there was to create some sort of romance with Marlon's character...and because I was so sick of the other pathetic romance going on I wasn't at all interested in another one. All in all, the characters were flat and boring. Scenes, costumes, and characters were copied and pasted from Star Wars, Indiana Jones, and other various fantasy movies and video games, making for a mutant-esque movie. What was with that stupid rod they were after? Did the props department pick it up from Toys R Us or what?? Can someone explain the ending to me??? Maybe I just didn't understand, but I had no idea what happened after they went to Snails' grave. This is yet another film to be put into the vault of shame.
Rating:
Summary: Aaalrighty then...
Review: First of all, I only saw the movie when it showed on tv. And am I glad. It's so cheesy and completely unoriginal that I thought it was an actual tv show that just got made and was trying to pass itself off as a good movie... I almost cried when I found out it WAS a movie. Where to start. The acting. I cringe at the acting. The characters were completely stereotypical that it hurt, I didn't even bother to know their names. You take one look at the character and almost immediately you know what their purpose in the movie is. It's true: hero, magic girl, Scottish dwarf, (dark-skinned?) elf, child-like Empress, bad guy... and the list goes on and on. Next, the plot. Did ANYONE bother to look at the plot? Or the music? Or the overall movie? It felt like a cut-and-paste of other movies such as Star Wars, Indiana Jones, LOTR, etc. I couldn't find a single line of originality at all. Overall? I laughed at the movie in good humour. Yes, I think it was a rather poor movie, but it was greatly amusing to watch. That is, if you like to point out all the flaws and then guess who's going to die next. (oh, oh, oh! It has to be the best friend! It HAS to be... then the hero will go into an uncontrolled rage and kill the bad guy!!!) Wait, did I just spoil the movie for you? Sorry. But let's not forget the "war" storyline as well, the hero's quest would have been in vain without a purpose, right? Geez, I could have plotted out the whole movie with my eyes closed, having only their dialogue to listen to. Yeah. Good for laughs. Bad for a movie.
Rating:
Summary: We Got Dragons...If You Got Money To Burn!
Review: As a movie Dungeons & Dragons is trite, banal and utterly uninteresting. It story is a generic pastiche of a Disneyesque formula movie, a generous helping of Star Wars and Star Trek and some Lord of the Rings sprinkles. This formula has the affect of mocking the viewer at every oblique turn of its overused, all too familiar plot. Overall, this movie lacks a cohesive story and instead force-feeds one that is neither entertaining nor inspiring. The storyline is one that is worthy enough to grace the pixeled halls of a video game such as Everquest, or maybe even Quake. It might even work for a Saturday morning cartoon. Let's see...our heroes of the movie (though they did little that was heroic) were represented as two-dimensional stereotypes of a Rainbow Coalition sponsored adventuring party. So uninteresting they were that I can't remember their names, just their general attitude: the funny one (that wasn't funny), the magickie one, the bold one and, of course, the always annoyed, gruff dwarf with the faux-Scottish accent. Anyway, they all come from diverse social backgrounds yet manage to overcome this handicap and become friends working together to thwart some nefarious mage villain that.... ahh...needed some magic rod?...umm...to gain some power? I think that is how the story went, but much like the characters I can't seem to recall much of the plot. Sorry, paper-thin meals don't stick to one's ribs. As an aside, what was the deal with that ridiculous "rod" they were after. It looked like it was designed by some highbrow fashion designer to be carried by a waif thin model down a Paris catwalk. At least the wizard had the cliché-laden one-liners and typical inane villain mutterings that I relish so much. So our heroes go about, to and fro, doing God knows what. And they run into some thieves that were bad dudes. And then some elves. And a bunch of dragons, that instead of breathing a gout of flames from their ravenous maws, seemed to exhale fireballs. Waaaaa? Oh, and the big bald bad guy. And what was the deal with the beholder that was flashed across the screen for all of two seconds then never seen again? However, the worst, most vile part of the movie - the one that screams "Yea, chump, we really did put this in the movie" - is that Thora Birch, who plays the Princess Whatever-her-name-was, is cast in an essentially identical role as Natalie Portman's role as Queen Amidala in Star Wars, Episode I. Not only do the makers of Dungeons & Dragons have her play essentially the same role (a cute, fledgling aristocrat with a heart of gold), but have her in a scene that is exactly the same as the scene in Episode I where Amidala pleads to the council. Not only does the room look nearly the same but they have her dressed almost identically as her mirror image was in Star Wars. Please, please use some imagination next time (God forbid). As a representation of Dungeons & Dragons the game, I think the best thing that they could have done is not represent the game. Using dialogue in the movie that is the D&D game lingo, as they did, is to say the least, - dumb (like announcing that you are going to "cast a lightning bolt", or that what's-his'-face is "lawful evil"). Just write a good story if you want to rope in new players. And if you are trying to represent the game, what was that blue-faced humanoid that was wandering around the town? I've gamed a long time and I haven't the foggiest idea what it is. It looked like a refuge from the Cantina in Star Wars, or some Trekkie-type space alien. (I imagine the director spewing out during the production that they need "some Cantina aliens" because when the premise of Dungeons & Dragons was told to him or her that "its like Star Wars without the space or spaceships" and they don't have enough familiar, yet unrecognizable aliens for him/her's liking. But directing this movie is better than directing episodes of Dharma & Greg or the latest E! True Hollywood Story, so who cares if the alien is incongruous.) It is quite obvious, in this Humble Writer's opinion, that a bee's nest of producers, with little interest in the integrity of the movie or knowledge of the game that it was intended to represent, were hard at work in making Dungeons & Dragons into yet another massive blockbuster. They wanted to pull the Hollywood shuck on everybody and get people to hand over money for any old piece of vapid, formulaic trash that they could conjure up on the screen. Instead of following a misshapened parody of the blockbuster formula, they should have made Dungeons & Dragons so atrocious that it elevated that movie from "not worth watching" status to "so bad you need to see this movie", ala The Barbarian Queen or Litzomania. Should they have had any desire to make a film that could be classified anywhere in the general vicinity of what is nominally referred to as "a good movie", the producers could have started with adapting The Crystal Shard into a movie. This book has characters with personalities, authentic motivation and a plot that is not lifted from a video game.
Rating:
Summary: i don't want to be racist, but...
Review: a black skinned elf? and she is supposed to be a surface elf too, not a drow... gosh this movie sucked so much! some parts were so silly and irrelevant with the actual thing that I felt like crying. don't bother with this movie. ever.
Rating:
Summary: >.<
Review: Hey, what's with the negative atmosphere here, eh? I've seen this movie and while I admit that it was not Academy Awards material, it wasnt as bad as everyone is making it out to be. To tell the truth, I loved it, and I still love it. Its vintage fantasy - practically classic in my opinion.
So its not highly original. So the effects arent LOTR cailber. SO WHAT? There is no movie on earth that IS original (unless we're talking, like, the first movie ever made, but you know what I mean). Its a great movie with good acting, a decent plot and special effects that work for me. I recommend it to anyone who has the (obviously RARE) ability of willing suspension of disbelief and the enjoyment of all things fantasy.
|
