It took me a while to decide whether or not to write about this. In fact, I think I never wrote about the very first Dungeons & Dragons movie that came out years ago. And with good reason. Now that I watched the second D&D movie last night (it's hardly a sequel), I can honestly say neither movie is suitable for the “general public”. A shame, really, because the game itself should easily adapt to movies of Lord of the Rings kind of quality.

Dungeons & Dragons is a painfully bad movie. It's a miracle if Jeremy Irons didn't need some kind of psychiatric help after completing that movie. Bad acting, bad effects. And not exactly very true to the game world, which is probably the biggest disappointment for those hardcore D&D fans that would accept any badly acted movie based on their game, as long as there is some authenticity. And that is the good thing about the sequel. Dungeons & Dragons: Wrath of the Dragon God at least has some elements that will be familiar to D&D players. Although the acting still isn't great, and the effects are really lousy, at least the story is pretty straight-forward D&D style. That's about the best thing I can say about this movie. I won't bore you with details about the story or anything.

I am very disappointed by these movies. Sure, hardcore gamers may find some fun elements in the movie, and they will probably see a scene or two that might have been part of some of their own campaigns. But neither of these movies will have any appeal to non-fans of the game. Which is a shame, because a well-made movie could promote the game. Instead, these badly made movies will only serve to confirm the “geeky and stupid” image of the game, perhaps even of the entire roleplaying game “scene”.

I hope there won't be a third movie in the same style. That would mean having to watch yet another bad movie, since of course I'm hardcore enough to want to see it anyway. And complain about it afterwards.

Given my opinion, I guess I shouldn't even link to the Amazon pages of these movies, but hey, maybe you want to see these disasters for yourself.


[Buy] Dungeons & Dragons
[Buy] Dungeons and Dragons- Wrath of the Dragon God