Shoot the Director! (Dungeons & Dragons (DVD))

Member Name: Alindrail

Product:	Dungeons & Dragons (DVD)
Date:	07/03/01 (16 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Great effects

Disadvantages: Terrible dialogue, acting, scripting, everything.

The screen lights up... and the narration begins, and the horror dawns. Oh dear... a film that starts with narration, this is going to be really bad isn't it?

The film opens up with a dramatic scene... that just isn't. This film is a series of scenes that have potential but never lives up to it due to bad script writing and bad direction.

The basic plot is that an evil Mage is trying to wrest control from the Empress by seizing her staff that controls Gold Dragons. In the meantime, the Empress is trying to find a way of gaining a new sceptre in case she loses control of her old one. Amongst this intrigue stumble our three heroes. Two theives and an apprentice mage.

The film then moves in quick spurts towards a dramatic conclusion. The plot zips from one place to another without really stopping or even being very clear (a lot of intuitive leaps are called for, which is fair enough, but sometimes the overall picture is a little fuzzy).

The acting? Average, and downright BAD in places, due, I hope, the bad direction. At times Jeremy Irons is nearly incomprehensible as he spits and hisses his way through his lines in a bad attempt at being frightening. Our apprentice mage woman is a bit of a weed, after a spurt of magic at the beginning she just lumbers along as a useless liability. The comic relief provide by the thieves interaction is light and of the Hercules/Xena kind, but in appropriate in this context. The script is awful, and the actors labour under it like chains.

Is this a bad film? No, just hopelessly average with the elements that could have made it fantastic. Better casting and direction, as well as a major script re-write for better dialogue would have led to a much better script. An ambiguous ending is not helped by the viewer's antipathy to what actually happens.

The end fight scene is fantastic, but let down by the rest.

Summary: