Review of Knights of Badassdom (2014) by Christian G — 03 Jan 2015

I hated this movie. I hated all the references and winks and nods. It's great that the filmmakers have an interest or passion in heavy metal and D&D, but it really gets old after a while.

I find it annoying because it makes the dialogue feel so unrealistic and inauthentic. Nobody says, "No, it used to be black metal, then a sludge metal phase, and now doom metal." The girlfriend character this line of dialogue is spoken to isn't even supposed to understand what any of that means, which means that the dialogue makes her look stupid and our main character look like a pompous jerk. This movie is filled with all kinds of little nods to heavy metal and I hated it (and I actually listen to all the music they reference!).

The LARPing aspect felt more like it was thrown in because "haha LARPing". It really could have been any activity because the plot was so basic. The entire LARPing aspect was never fully utilized. It's not like the characters use skills they picked up to defeat the monster, so it served no purpose other than being a backdrop. And I would be fine with the role-playing just being a backdrop for the movie, but then why does it treat everyone that does it like an imbecile and make it seem like a joke? None of the jokes even land and are the most obvious punchlines. The movie Role Models I felt handled LARPing much better and is worth checking out before this movie.

Peter Dinklage is the only saving grace of this movie, but even he is in it very little. I would not be surprised if the filmmakers only had him for a few days and they had to kill off his character because he wouldn't be around to finish it. The scene where our main characters find his dead body is shot in a way where they never share the camera with Dinklage, so clearly he wasn't even on set that day. I don't blame Dinklage for wanting little to do with this movie because I certainly had enough of it after 15 minutes.

Okay, so clearly I hated this movie. Maybe it's my own biases. I hate cultural references when they're shoehorned in like it makes a movie better because of it. That, coupled with the unoriginal plot and unlikeable characters just made this movie miserable to sit through. I'm sure there's an audience out there, but I'm not part of it.