I'm neither a fan of Dragonlance nor do I know anything about the RPGs or novels which this movie is based on but it certainly tried to treat its source-material with some level of seriousness. Taking a risky chance with its combination of 2D and 3D animation the movie produces two types of results for both: embarrassingly bad and surprisingly good.
At the beginning the 2D animation limps, appears stiff and flat whereas the CG works somehow well especially with the bigger dragon-animations. When the drakonians step in the typical minions' CG somehow begins to look a lot less impressive than the 2D which picks up from time to time in the battle-scenes. At least there wasn't a lack of effort in trying to make the characters look lively even if at times the characters' expressions and motions look ridiculously cheezy and exaggerated.
On the voice-acting, nothing really stands out but nothing really annoyed me either. The frantic pace of the story is probably the film's biggest weakness as it tries to rush through the events of the novel and while it offers plenty of interesting plot-elements the film lacks a dynamic the pace would require to feel acceptable and which is only enhanced by the lapses in animation quality.
The film none the less makes a valiant effort in trying to convey the story to film, the limitations in budget are most likely the reasons why the attempt is not fully successful, but the sloppiness actually begins to add some entertainment value to the film as well, so I can't say the whole thing was a wasted effort.
This is a guilty pleasure for a fan of animated films, where the story and narration for once make some sense but the animation just can't keep up.
At the beginning the 2D animation limps, appears stiff and flat whereas the CG works somehow well especially with the bigger dragon-animations. When the drakonians step in the typical minions' CG somehow begins to look a lot less impressive than the 2D which picks up from time to time in the battle-scenes. At least there wasn't a lack of effort in trying to make the characters look lively even if at times the characters' expressions and motions look ridiculously cheezy and exaggerated.
On the voice-acting, nothing really stands out but nothing really annoyed me either. The frantic pace of the story is probably the film's biggest weakness as it tries to rush through the events of the novel and while it offers plenty of interesting plot-elements the film lacks a dynamic the pace would require to feel acceptable and which is only enhanced by the lapses in animation quality.
The film none the less makes a valiant effort in trying to convey the story to film, the limitations in budget are most likely the reasons why the attempt is not fully successful, but the sloppiness actually begins to add some entertainment value to the film as well, so I can't say the whole thing was a wasted effort.
This is a guilty pleasure for a fan of animated films, where the story and narration for once make some sense but the animation just can't keep up.