Review of Dungeons & Dragons (2000) by Dai S — 14 Jul 2010

Here we have a film adaptation of Gary Gygax's beloved role-playing dice game, but is it good enough to spark interest in playing the game? Well, it's bad enough to have D&D fans playing the game to forget that the film existed and the uninitiated to not even bother with it.

In the kingdom of Izmer, an evil ruler seems interested in gathering an artifact that would ensure him control over the kingdom and it's up to a few unlikely heroes to stop him. Pretty typical storyline, which does not follow any of the player-created storylines in the game (and is not as creative as them either).

You must also face visual effects the quality of a Syfy Channel original movie (including those tedious upwards digital building shots), one of the most annoying on-screen partnerships in cinematic history (thank God the most annoying one in the duo dies an hour in!), retreads of those boring and unnecessary politics scenes from Star Wars : Episode I, low-caliber action scenes that rip off of Star Wars, Alice in Wonderland, and some other movies, bad performances (Jeremy Irons overacting, mainly to get that paycheck), and gawkable moments (yes, there's a supposedly menacing henchman who wears blue lipstick).

To face off against these perils, you must roll a 64 or higher to elude/ignore them... or you don't have to roll the dice at all to skip this movie. Yes, this film was so awful that it single-handedly destroyed Justin Whalin's big-screen film career.