Movielogr
Dungeons & Dragons (2000)
Directed by Courtney Solomon
Twitter Facebook Google+Overview
The Empire of Izmer is a divided land: elite magicians called “mages” rule while lowly commoners are powerless. When Empress Savina vows to bring equality and prosperity to her land, the evil mage Profion plots to depose her.
Rated PG-13 | Length 107 minutes
Actors
Justin Whalin | Jeremy Irons | Thora Birch | Bruce Payne | Zoe McLellan | Marlon Wayans | Robert Miano | Tomas Havrlik | Lee Arenberg | Kristen Wilson | Martin Astles | David O'Kelly | Richard O'Brien | Matthew O'Toole | Edward Jewesbury | Tom Baker | Jiří Macháček | Jiri Kraus | Martin Hub | Dimo Lipitkovský | Karel Vávrovec | Roman Hemala
Viewing History (seen 1 time)
| Date Viewed | Device | Format | Source | Rating |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 04/04/2023 | TV | DVD | Owned | 4.5 stars |
| (Average) 4.5 stars |
Viewing Notes
With the new D&D movie in theaters I had a hankering to revisit this, which I have not seen since around the time it was released. It’s not an easy movie to locate tho I’m positive the Interloan network back in Illinois would’ve had it to borrow. As it was for me, neither Interloan I’m a member of here in Colorado had this nor did any of the dozen+ thrift stores/pawn shops I visited. So I had to buy it (bc it’s cheaper than renting a VOD). But not the Blu-ray which is outrageously expensive bc it’s OOP but even the DVD is pricey if looking in the wrong places.
Anyways, I paid 4 bucks total shipped for a used DVD from Half-Price Books via Amazon.
I don’t think it’s worth even that. Not just that the movie is not good but the DVD is one of those early gen editions that looks like crap now on a HDTV. Maybe it looked good once on the old CRT sets but wow this was an awful PQ to watch for 2 hours.
For the movie, yeah this is not good. It does a few things right but the things that are wrong really torpedo the entire endeavor. I got nothing against Marlon Wayans, esp in the right role, but cast here as the comedy relief is a mistake. It really is like dropping someone from the 21st century into this medieval period film. So miscast and unfunny and distracting. Paired w/that miscasting is the screenplay + script. Both needed more work and either drop the humor, which really doesn’t fit most of the movie, or hire true comedy writers that understand how to balance the serious tone with the humor, not unlike the new DnD movie.
I love Jeremy Irons totally hamming it up and earning that million dollar payday for not a whole lot of work. Clearly he took the job to pay for his vacation home. Jimmy Olson (Justin Whalin) is a decent lead character w/Zoe McLellan as his romantic interest. Had it been just them plus the elf and dwarf it would’ve been fine. But another casting stumble is Thora Birch, who is usually good in most things. Not in this. Not at all. Her line reads felt right out of a middle school play. Not sure what was going on there but wow they should’ve removed that character and storyline completely and just focused on the quest to keep sorcerer from controlling the dragons.
The dragons look terrible w/that early CGI but I can’t really fault them too much. I watched some of the deleted scenes w/the director commentary and a common utterance, “we didn’t have the budget to finish that scene so it was cut.” Guess there were a few issues during production.
So this isn’t a good movie that I now own on DVD. :)
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