I originally caught this film at the cinema during the height of my enthusiasm for the tabletop game called Dungeons & Dragons that this film shares its title with. The trailers looked interesting and, of course, the marketing made sense since this was probably Newline's build up to Lord of the Rings the following year. Maybe that left no money or creative juice for this film - what ever the reason for the sheer badness of Dungeons & Dragons, I'm profoundly grateful that Newline did not take the same approach to making Lord of the Rings.
Where to start?! The characters are really not characters at all but just archetypes and clichés thrown together. It's a little like the laziest ever roleplaying session: here's a thief, here's a mage, here's a dwarf. What's your thief like? He's black and he steals stuff. What's the mage like? He's evil. They are like cardboard cutouts with no life or chemistry.
The plot is infantile and generic at the same time. Evil wizard wants to rule the world because of his lust for power and the characters (for lack of another word) join forces because they are there and need stuff to do. Again, this reminds me of a lazy roleplaying session. They have no motivation beyond the fact that it says so in the script. So, I was not invested in any of them and could not have cared less if they lived or died.
The acting was awful: Stiff in most cases but, as for Jeremy Irons, completely over the top. I suspect he worked with what he had in terms of script. Still, my award for cringe-worthiness goes to Bruce Payne for playing Damodar as both stiff AND over-the-top.
Considering the breath-taking visuals of Lord of the Rings only a year later, the visual effects of this film are disappointing to say the least. It has dragons even right there in its title but the ones you get to see look more like hand puppets than anything else! Costume and set designs are like cheap Xena-rip offs. Some weapons literally look like plastic toys.
Finally, I was especially unhappy with how the film turned out because I had been looking forward to seeing one of my favourite games come to life. In this film (like in many game adaptations) I see no appreciation of the source material. I'll admit there are dragons and also a few dungeons in a generic high fantasy setting with elves, dwarfs and orcs. That's where any similarity ends. It was at its worst a quick cash grab with the name of a big franchise and at best an attempt to show that Newline could also do fantasy. I assume it left both fans of the game and fans of fantasy films in general dissatisfied. Recently, I found it again on Netflix but after watching some five minutes I remembered how bad it was and stopped. No need to waste another 107 minutes of my life.
Where to start?! The characters are really not characters at all but just archetypes and clichés thrown together. It's a little like the laziest ever roleplaying session: here's a thief, here's a mage, here's a dwarf. What's your thief like? He's black and he steals stuff. What's the mage like? He's evil. They are like cardboard cutouts with no life or chemistry.
The plot is infantile and generic at the same time. Evil wizard wants to rule the world because of his lust for power and the characters (for lack of another word) join forces because they are there and need stuff to do. Again, this reminds me of a lazy roleplaying session. They have no motivation beyond the fact that it says so in the script. So, I was not invested in any of them and could not have cared less if they lived or died.
The acting was awful: Stiff in most cases but, as for Jeremy Irons, completely over the top. I suspect he worked with what he had in terms of script. Still, my award for cringe-worthiness goes to Bruce Payne for playing Damodar as both stiff AND over-the-top.
Considering the breath-taking visuals of Lord of the Rings only a year later, the visual effects of this film are disappointing to say the least. It has dragons even right there in its title but the ones you get to see look more like hand puppets than anything else! Costume and set designs are like cheap Xena-rip offs. Some weapons literally look like plastic toys.
Finally, I was especially unhappy with how the film turned out because I had been looking forward to seeing one of my favourite games come to life. In this film (like in many game adaptations) I see no appreciation of the source material. I'll admit there are dragons and also a few dungeons in a generic high fantasy setting with elves, dwarfs and orcs. That's where any similarity ends. It was at its worst a quick cash grab with the name of a big franchise and at best an attempt to show that Newline could also do fantasy. I assume it left both fans of the game and fans of fantasy films in general dissatisfied. Recently, I found it again on Netflix but after watching some five minutes I remembered how bad it was and stopped. No need to waste another 107 minutes of my life.