Dungeons & Dreck

DVD review from The Movie Snob

Dungeons & Dragons (D-). Long before I became an erudite and sophisticated movie critic, The Movie Snob was an avid D&Der. Although there were rumors that Hollywood was making a movie explicitly based on the Dungeons & Dragons game way back in the 1980s, they came to nothing until this 2000 release. I heard it was bad and only just now got around to seeing it. Yes, it's a turkey. The special effects are cartoonish, the dialogue is lame, and the acting is abominable. Somehow they got Jeremy Irons to play the villainous sorceror Profion; he chews the scenery with insane glee, and for some reason he seems to think that he sounds more evil if he talks like he has a frog in his throat. Thora Birch is absolutely terrible as the idealistic empress who turns up from time to time to deliver a clunky speech about equality and brothrhood; she sounds just like she is reading them from cue cards. One of the Wayans brothers drops in; apparently nobody told him that he was supposed to be a medieval thief and not a character in a late-20th-century sit-com. Absolutely terrible.

P.S. According to reviews floating around the internet, the direct-to-video sequel from 2005 was actually a better movie.