The plan, as it is, was to watch every SyFy
Channel original film ever made. Let's not get into the
reasoning behind this lunacy, but that's the plan. As it
turns out, as of this writing, SyFy has two 'Dungeons and
Dragons' sequels they have released as originals, neither of
which I've seen, but I figured since I'm going to watch them
eventually, I should at least check out the much reviled
original film from 2000, again which I have never seen, to
have a basis of what I might see with these low budget
sequels. Well my friends, I have done some stupid things
in my suspect past, but jumping in a time machine to watch
this Dungeons and Dragons movie was not very bright on my
part. Good lord that was awful. I'm generally not
too hard on these movies because I recognize that it is a lot
work to make a movie, but that was a turd. What were
they thinking? And I haven't rolled and octagonal die in
my life.
Our film opens with Profian, as played by Jeremy Irons who had
to have been on that stuff during the entire production of
this film, throwing his hands up in the air like a wide-eyed,
cracked out corner store preacher. Now Jeremy Irons is a
great actor, just watch his short but amazing performance in
'Margin Call' for proof of this, but while I assign no value
to arbitrarily distributed awards, say like the Oscars or even
the Razzies for that matter, after watching Mr. Irons in this
movie, were it not for the painkillers I suspect he was on, I
would've suggested The Razzies rename their top award to 'The
Irons'. Anyway, Profian is all happy and stuff because
he got some crazy staff that lets him control dragons, only to
find that his fancy staff sucks ass and doesn't control
jack. Now he has to get the staff of Empress Savina
(Thora Birch) to control dragons and thus sends his right hand
man, the silver lipped (?) Damador (Bruce Payne) to retrieve
this thing.
Now we get to the meat of this film, that
being the introduction of thieves and BFF's Ridley (Justin
Whalin) and Snails (Marlon Wayans) who decide to steal some
baubles from the school of magic, only to be exposed by the
fair mage Marina (Zoe McLellan)… just in time to witness
Damador murdering Marina's magic professor, a crime that these
three losers will be framed for. Did I just call that
award 'The Irons'? Maybe it should be called 'The
Whalin'. Just saying is all. And Justin Whalin has
no 'Margin Call' or 'Damage' or the 'French Lieutenant's
Woman' I can call upon to save him. Just 'Super Capers'
which is evidence more damning than even this movie.
Now, in theory, adventure is afoot as Marina, Ridley and
Snails flee, with sage map in hand, in search of the Rod of
Something Important Which Will Do Something of Note.
Profian has also dispatched Damador to retrieve this map,
Damador now all infected with … hell… I don't what that is
coming out of his ears.
Now this a bit of a spoiler but in the midst of the adventure,
Snails, who is Black, obviously, since he's being played by
Marlon Wayans, will encounter Damador in a showdown. At
the end of this showdown the kingdom of Izmer will now have a
Black population of Zero. We aren't counting the elf
Norda (Kristen Wilson) since she's not a human being, you
know? Regardless, Profian has the Rod of Something or
Note, which is doing something bad that I'm not quite sure of,
something involving a Red Dragon, and it's will be up to
Ridley and Zoe, along with the Elf and some dwarf, to save the
kingdom for the Queen. I think.
Whatever you might've heard about 'Dungeons & Dragons',
I'm sad to say that all of those tales are true.
Terrible dialog… I mean truly awful dialog, a scattershot
narrative, parts of the movie either didn't get shot or maybe
it was just shoddy editing, amazing over acting and
overwrought buffoonery all framed by some really pretty
pictures. True enough the movie might've been a crapfest
but it was a good looking crapfest and we could see where a
large portion of the forty five million dollars spent on this
movie went.
But it was probably the buffoonery of the whole exercise that
put the nail in the coffin of this nice looking, terrible
movie. Now when you say 'buffoonery' and 'Dungeons &
Dragons' your thoughts will probably drift towards Marlon
Wayans, and true enough young Mr. Wayans was quite the buffoon
in this movie, but to his credit he died in this turd with
some dignity. Or at least I guess he died. There
was kind of an open ended conclusion which I imagine was going
to be revisited in the sequel, but since this movie made all
of 8 bucks internationally, that didn't get the green
light. The thing is that pretty much every single
character in this mess outside of Thora Birch and Kristen
Wilson was the source of misplaced buffoonery. Just
watch Jeremy Irons in action and tell me he's not channeling
the ghost of Evil Genius from Rocky and Bullwinkle. And
can anyone tell me what's up with Bruce Payne's Silver
Lips?
But as we like say, we're all about the positive here at the
FCU. Kristen Wilson's metal cone boobs were
awesome. Some old elf dude was prattling on and on about
some nonsense while reviving Ridley, but in the middle of that
scene were Kristen Wilson's metal cone boob plate which made
whatever that dude was saying completely irrelevant. And
anything that distracted us from listening to dialog in this
movie was a good thing. Plus eighteen year old Thora
Birch rode a dragon. You can't beat that.
A movie that upset those who cherished the RPG and failed to
interest those who beat up people who played the RPG, 2000's
D&D movie gave us nothing. Except for watching
Jeremy Irons like we've never seen him before, and as he
probably never wants to be seen again.
