Review of Dungeons & Dragons (2000) by Stephanie H — 20 Jul 2008

I've been playing D&D since 1979, and this movie did not have enough of a D&D feel. Of course I stopped playing with the 1st Edition rules, I hoped that more monsters, character classes, armor-types, traps and spells from the D&D world would've been shown in this movie.

Where were all the wonderful monsters that D&D players know fondly from the game? I would've loved to see the onscreen representations of some of the famous monsters from the game. The filmmakers should've crammed the movie with tons of references to the actual game, so the D&D fans could pick them all out.

The "dungeons" in the movie were extremely short. A vital part of the game is about a party working together, but in this movie - the hero Ridley went solo through most of the dungeons, while his companions waited outside -- what was the purpose of that? The ending made little sense, except to make way for a sequel.

I would've prefered an ending that reverted to our world, showing a group of gameplayers sitting around a table, finishing up the story we had just seen. The scale of the movie seemed a bit cramped and staged.

No attempts were made to combine the sweeping CGI vistas with the live actors. I think they should've left the scenes inside the scroll and the Ridley's dream of the baby dragon intact. On the DVD, you can see these scenes and others under the Deleted Scenes section.

I think they ran out of time with this movie, and wanted it released in time for Christmas. If they had done more post production, it may have been a much better movie.