BootDigest Such a frustrating disappointment

FeistyUpper If you don't like this, we can't be friends.

Konterr Brilliant and touching

Dynamixor The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

teralitha The main plot of the story is interesting. I would give it a 10 except for some of its flaws. First, the bad.1. The early interaction between Berek and Valarius was kinda lame. I know they wanted to portray weakness in the leader of the quest for later emotional points, but that scene was just lame. They should have gone about it differently. Otherwise Berek played his role very well.2. The cleric, Dorian. His part to play in the movie is almost non existent. And the actor playing him was kinda... blah. The only thing he does in the whole movie is bang a hammer, banish spectres, and make a weak fire shield before dying. They should have had a better actor and added more to his role before killing him off, which I didn't mind.3. Malora. I liked her acting for most of it, but the early spell casting scenes were a bit fake looking.4. The movie was too short in my opinion. It needed more. A really good dungeon and dragons movie with a good story would really need like 3-4 hours. Why they cut things out I don't understand, and didn't fix inconsistencies.5. In the bonus features they show the character stats as they would be from the game. And... there are inconsistencies. Berek, Dorian, Lux are all lvl 7. I don't recall seeing Nihms level or Omaleen(elf wizard) But she had to be at least lvl 10 or 11 to have 2 teleport spells memorized. Berek also was listed as having 19 strength(naturally?) They said he was wearing bracers of titan strength, which I believe would be something like 25(Godlike) His character never once was portrayed as having this godlike strength, Nor was did the actor even look remotely muscular to have a natural 19. Malora class and levels and actual profession are confusing. She was listed as a lvl 5 mage/level 1 cleric of obad hai. This would mean she was dual class, and according to the rules she could never gain any more levels as a mage. Yet, at the end of the movie, she was added to the council of mages. Her whole story seemed to revolve around the idea that clerics of ancient Turan wielded elemental magics(like mages) and it was some long lost secret that apparently clerics(finest healers in the land) at the temple of Obad hai had no knowledge of. So basically the writers got mages and clerics mixed up in the back story.The good. I like the action music. I liked most of the acting. I liked most of the story. I liked the emotional drama. I liked how they stayed as true as possible to the game. Overall I like the movie and have watched it many times and will watch it many more times. Im glad to own it.

moonmonday From what I had heard about the first film, I was better off skipping it and watching the second. When the opportunity arose to do that, I decided to seize it since I had a couple of hours that I could waste. I can't compare it to the first in the series, but as a Dungeons and Dragons player since the 80s and a great fan of fantasy, I can analyse it on its own merits.The first thing and the main thing that impressed me was the inclusion of several aspects from the actual game. I really liked the little touches of detail. Spells, items, monsters and more were all here. It was really wonderful to see all these brought to life.The second was that it really did have a very distinctly Dungeons and Dragons feel to it, rather than just any fantasy film. There was an eye to things that fans and players would know, and that made it distinctly identifiable, which was nice; so often filmmakers, especially Hollywood, are notorious for tacking on an inapplicable brand name to a barely identifiable film tie-in.Unfortunately, despite all these things, making it Dungeons and Dragons doesn't necessarily make it good Dungeons and Dragons. The film was a rather bitter and unhappy affair, and I found myself often really brought down by its miserable tone throughout. It is comparable to taking your character to a session run by a stranger, who has bought a module at a rummage sale somewhere and wants to inflict it upon you; he doesn't really know very well how to run the game and tries as hard as he can to destroy you all, to give himself some sort of sadistic pleasure. Afterwards, unhappy with the experience, you take your character and file him away, to be brought around for another campaign run, instead, by someone you know and trust. Which may not happen for years. And at that point you conveniently omit that one odd session out, because it was that unenjoyable.And that's essentially what this film is: a bad module run by a nasty, childish sadist of a dungeonmaster. The story is relentlessly depressing and poorly-handled in every such aspect, and it additionally functions to make virtually all of the characters difficult to sympathise with or even care about. The leader is completely bland, although his love Melora was the high point of the film (and, predictably, the most tormented). The Elf mage was interesting but underused, the female barbarian was there solely for eye candy (though she did a pretty good job with her lacking part), and the cleric was there because someone apparently thought clerics were useless. All of us who know otherwise sent up a collective groan at the treatment of this one.The rogue was a good actor, but his part was similarly inane and the character completely unlikable. He also ended up underused in the parts that could've shown his strengths, and overused in parts where he was completely superfluous. The villain was utterly forgettable unfortunately, although the monster effects were quite memorable indeed. I really did enjoy the dragons and so forth, especially the ultimate confrontation. Really exciting and really well done.It's just a pity that the rest had to be endured to get there. This is the kind of story that you hear from people who decided to try the game once, got some garbage like this thrown at them, and ended up quitting and never again going near a tabletop game. It's sad, but it's amazing what an inept dungeonmaster can do for someone's enthusiasm. That's essentially what happened here.And while the details were nice for a while, there were times when they were just useless and frustrating. We had a Drow throwaway joke, but where were any actual Drow? We had a 'necropolis' (cleverly masquerading as a sylvan glen) complete with a lich, but what real purpose did it serve? And so on.If there had been more of a heroic, pleasant fantasy tone rather than a by-the-numbers destroy-em-all gauntlet tone, it would've been much more satisfying. As it was, it gave the impression of enduring the film, rather than enjoying it. There were some pleasant parts and some nice aspects, some talented people trying to do their best with lacking parts and ludicrous circumstances, but the tale itself was all too unpleasant. And as any player of Dungeons and Dragons knows, the story is everything.It wasn't a complete loss. It's not totally a horror. But it is by no means a fantastic film, unfortunately for those who put so much energy into it. Hopefully if they do a third one, they will go for a better situation and different villain, as well as a less depressing, unhappy, and just plain unpleasant story.And for pity's sake, somebody tell the DM that nobody likes to play games with someone trying hard to get them killed!

jdrakeh Of course, by "first Dungeons & Dragons film" I mean that horrible piece of drek released in 2000. This made for television movie manages to trump its immediate predecessor in almost every regard, though Bruce Payne is *still* horrible as Damodar.Indeed, the largest failing of the film is reintroducing Bruce Payne (whose acting was horrible) as Damodar. I can't help but think how much better the film could have been had they ditched the high-priced Payne, replaced him with a better (albeit lesser known) actor, and used the money saved to foot the bill for better CGI.Where Wrath of the Dragon God succeeds is in its faithful portrayal of many common D&D tropes, from actual dungeons and dragons to common monsters (e.g., Lich) and the stereotypical D&D adventuring party. If you listen carefully, you'll even find some nice (and appropriate) references to classic AD&D adventure locations.Likewise, the quality of acting in Wrath of the Dragon God is markedly better than than displayed in the first D&D move, despite this film's cast being composed primarily of unknown actors. Indeed, Tim Stern, Mark Dymond, and Ellie Chidzey are actually quite *good* in their respective roles as the stereotypical Fighter, Thief, and Barbarian.Finally, while the plot here is nothing to write home about in terms of originality (which itself may be a clever homage to D&D adventure modules), it is at least comprehensible — further, it manages to rise to the level of "entertaining" at times (usually when focused on the exploits of the adventuring party).If Gerry Lively had canned Bruce Payne and been given the same budget that Courtney Solomon frittered away on the first film, I can only assume that Wrath of the Dragon God would have been *great* rather than merely adequate (a measure of quality that the first film never came close to achieving).Seeing Wrath of the Dragon God outperform its big screen counterpart in almost every possible manner reminds me that, sometimes, the television screen is better than the silver screen for fantasy.

wolfbeast I had expected this sequel to be in line with the first D&D movie with regards to the general feel and content/quality, but was quite disappointed.The visual effects were notably a lot worse, a lot of jerky, stuttered animation in the movements of the creatures, not at all the same kind of quite natural movement I expected to see after having seen the first movie. Lack of detail, cheesy transitions, poor interaction of rendered with real-world elements. There are more different creatures from the fantasy realm in this movie, but none of them are executed well, or even convincingly. Cutting corners with lots of gray and black.Then, the acting: Sure, it's not been a strong point in the first movie either, but once again, a lot less convincing to put the characters down. No depth to them, feeling more like a high-school play at times which is also indicative of poor directing and a scripts with no real interest in telling a story, but rather to "produce".I like the fantasy genre, I enjoy the setting this movie plays in. The medieval feel of all the extras was good, and some nice stunts there with the (many) explosions, but overall: a thin story, poor acting of the main characters, and horrendously B-movie special effects make this movie one that only barely scrapes a score of 3 out of me.It's is OK to watch once. And only once... If you can sit through the 1-3/4 hours of it without getting fed up with it or tired of seeing the poor execution.