Wednesday, July 29, 2009

Dungeons & Dragons

Day 209 - 7/28/09 - Movie #205

BEFORE: Just back from Comic-Con, and straight into a beer dinner, which doesn't exactly help me fall back into a regular routine. So it's going to be tough to catch up...

THE PLOT: Emperess Savina Rules over the magical empire Izmer. The young thieves Ridley and Snails get involved with her quest to find the legendary Scepter of Savrille. With this most desirable magical wand she could have the power to rule over the Red Dragons and she would then be able to provide freedom and equality amongst all people.

AFTER: This plot was extremely confusing - I couldn't tell what was happening most of the time. Was this a quest for a gem, or a map, or a scepter, or what? And there's this council arguing over - oh, I give up! Look, I've played Dungeons & Dragons, and this movie has NONE of its excitement. Jeremy Irons (again?) is the villain this time, but other than fighting the Empress, I couldn't tell what his evil plan was either. Nothing gets explained - not the rules of the conflict, or how magic works, or how thieves detect traps - all that is sort of skipped over. Some of the traps are kind of cool, but for the most part this is just a pile of junk thrown together.

What's the point of assembling a ragtag team of a thief, a mage, an elf and a dwarf, if only one of them is able to enter the dungeon? D&D is all about characters working TOGETHER to go on quests and find treasure. All the other characters just seem very useless! And are dragons good, or evil? And if the Empress can control them, why does she need the control rod? It just makes no sense.

RATING: 3 out of 10 hit points.

1 comment:

  1. If this is the same film that I saw, it stars that kid who played Jimmy Olsen on the TV show Lois and Clark.

    Really don't know what was up with this film. I think they spent all there funds buying rights to the name "Dungeons and Dragons", which didn't add anything else to the film.

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