Dungeons and Dragons: The Movie Review

by Jon Popick (jpopick AT sick-boy DOT com)
December 8th, 2000
PLANET SICK-BOY: http://www.sick-boy.com
"We Put the SIN in Cinema"

Trolls … elves … gnomes … hey, that’s not even what Dungeons and Dragons is about. It was more of a description of the film’s target demographic. Now calm down, Poindexter. A movie isn’t worth hyperventilating over. Put down your inhaler and listen for a second.
Dragons is easily one of the year’s worst films, and there’s a very good chance it could run away with multiple Razzie Award nominations for its excessive crapulence. The film not only rips off major elements and themes from a bunch of other movies, but it fails to execute them in a successful manner, as well.

Dragons is set in chaotic Izmer, a land ruled by Empress Savina (Thora Birch, American Beauty). Savina wants to restore power to the common people of Izmer, but she meets great resistance in the form of the diabolical Mage Profion (Jeremy “What the Hell Happened to My Career” Irons). Together with his bald, blue-lipped henchman, Profion has just come into control of some magic stick that can control the powerful Red Dragons of Izmer. For some reason, he needs to get his hands on Savina’s magic stick to complete his evil doings.

Considering that the battle over the magic sticks is the main plot of the film, it’s quite odd that both Savian and Profion disappear for the 80 minutes in the middle of the movie. That large chunk of time is filled with the story of two thieves – Ridley (Justin Whalin, Jimmy Olsen from the Lois & Clark series) and Snails (Marlon Wayans, Requiem For a Dream) – and their adventures with a cute apprentice Mage named Marina (newcomer Zoe McLellan). The even get to hang out in a cantina full of strange creatures (a la Star Wars) and go through a deadly maze full of traps (a la Raiders of the Lost Ark).

Here’s a question for you, Poindexter: Who in their right mind would make a film based on a game that, as far as I can tell, hit its popularity about 15 years ago? I’ll tell you who – producer Thomas M. Hammel, who also greenlit dead-in-the-water projects like Howie Long’s Firestorm and Cindy Crawford’s Fair Game. Dragons’ director has no feature-film experience, which is pretty obvious from his inability to pull anything but wooden performances from any of his actors.

Irons (Lolita) seems way too enthusiastic to be in this film, and Birch performs like she’s been run over with a Rohypnol truck. This isn’t what you’d expect from, respectively, an Oscar winner and somebody who is hot off a role in last year’s Best Picture champ. The pick of the litter is the newcomer McLellan, who kind of resembles a dark-haired Claire Danes (right down to her inability to pick a good script). Wayans is awful, and his character is only slightly less annoying than Jar-Jar Binks.

Wayans has accomplished the Triple Crown of film this year. He’s been in one of the year’s most profitable films (Scary Movie) and one of the year’s best-reviewed films (Requiem). Now he’s in one of the year’s worst, too.

1:49 – PG-13 for fantasy action violence

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