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'Dungeons and Dragons' -- Don't let the naysayers cheat you - Lord of the Rings news - J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings

December 08, 2000 at 12:50:21

Have all the negative non-reviews led you to decide NOT to see this movie? Think again. Here's what someone who saw the movie has to say....

"Dungeons and Dragons" has probably gotten the biggest pre-release thumbs-down from critics and Internet know-it-alls of all time. Why? Who knows? They clearly have no idea of what the movie is about.

Is this supposed to be the be-all, end-all fantasy movie? Absolutely not. It's a movie based on a role-playing game system. And anyone who has invested months or years in RPGs knows that the game time can be long, tedious, argumentative, and exciting. What makes a good game really depends on what people hope to get out of it. Some gamers are silly and goofy. Some gamers are serious and dedicated. Some gamers just show up to socialize and may remember to throw the dice when they are supposed to.

Anyone who is going to write a story or tell a story set in the "Dungeons and Dragons" (tm) universe needs to understand what that universe is all about. And that doesn't mean just any gamer will get it. But once you point out the obvious, people eyes' light up and they go, "Oh, yeah!"

So, what's it all about? Character. Yeah, that imaginary person whose life you role-play. To anyone who's nursed a character through several campaigns, it's more than just a few sheets of papers filled with facts and lists of items and goods. That character becomes a part of you. That character represents memories. Maybe the memories aren't always so good. Maybe you're still irked that Rainbo the Magnificent almost got everyone killed two years ago. Maybe you regret sneaking into that wizard's fortress and losing all your magic gear.

Hey, that's what makes the gaming so interesting. You can learn from your mistakes and develop some goals that (in real life) hurt no one and give you a chance to engage in some mental exercise. Some people like to play evil or mischeivous characters. Some people want to be that knight in shining armor (or magic chain mail), running around the landscape challenging monsters, saving damsels, getting a hero's welcome (and reward). Some people like to accumulate stuff: magical weapons, potions, gold, jewels, armor, retainers, castles, ship, land.

Of course that's just the fun side of the game from the player's perspective. On the other side of the table is the dungeon master, the game referee, the guy (or girl) who is there to make sure the world looks real, runs right, and tries to do your characters in at almost every turn. The dungeon master has the thankless task of dreaming up all the wacky adventures your characters get to go on. And nothing is more frustrating than when you spend a couple of weeks working up a nice murderous dungeon only to have all the players decide it's time to find a safe haven, tally up their experience points, and start bumping up their skills.

The dungeon master has to make the bad guys challenging and as unapproachable as possible without making them godlike. No one really wants to be able to lop off heads at the table of the high council of mages unless they've spent a year of their life getting to their point where their characters are powerful enough to do that. You want to swap tales with the other players, especially when new people come into the group. You want to reminisce about all those lucky die throws (and everyone knows some of them were fudged). And you want to recall the characters that you lost, all the great plans you had for them.

I remember one game where I brought in two guys. One was a fighter the other wasn't. I had big plans for that fighter. Unfortunately, he got nailed by a crossbow in the first melee. He never got up again. C'est la vie (or, "Say, la vee" as we used to say in my old gaming group). Oh, yeah. The other guy? The one I thought was expendable? Mr. Meat? He went on to achieve some pretty neat things over the years. No matter how many times I put him in danger, he somehow pulled through (no fudged die rolls as I recall, but then, I wasn't rolling for the DM).

So, what does all this have to do with the movie? Everything. How many times have we sat around the table second-guessing the Dungeon Master? Countless times. Is he right, is he wrong to do it this way? And is it really necessary to go down that road and enter that fortress?

If you want a taste of life as a player you can go see this movie. Ridley and Snails, the two thieves who move the story along, are your average, typical, low-level gamers. That's right, gamers. One wants to go do all these neat things, the other just wants to play it safe. I can't begin to count the number of times I have watched these two archetypes played out among fellow players.

Something I haven't seen in any review of the movie (and most of the ones I've read were written by people who hadn't actually watched the movie) is an acknowledgement of the fact that this movie has a plot, it has characters with motivations, and it is extremely faithful to the core genre.

Sure, DnDmovie.com has been trying to spread the word, but a lot of other sites have been downlaying this movie. Apparently the fact that a lot of dragons will be seen in the movie's climactic battle (and it's not a short battle by any means) has overwhelmed the imaginations of people who think they know better.

The skies are filled with dragons. It's an incredible scene, and the magicians who seem to be so powerful in the previews aren't. They need the Rod of Savrin if they are going to pull off their revolution. But what they haven't stopped to consider is the true price of that revolution.

And here is where the real story-telling kicks in. When the movie begins everything looks like a simple power-play by your average megalomaniacal mage (Jeremy Irons). He's a pretty mean and potent magician. The special effects are only half the portrayal. Irons hams it up but he drives the point home that his character (Profion) is evil and powerful and ambitious. More importanty, Profion is not just a randomly die-roll driven character. His methods are consistent with how any experienced gamer would play that kind of character. He's always got a backup plan. He didn't get to be the biggest, meanest mucketymuck by inheritance: he got there by whalloping the tar out of his competition.

The magicians are capable of subtlety and they produce a few surprises. In fact, the surprises can be a bit unnerving. Marina shows us quickly that she is capable of tossing around some magic, but when she comes up against a more powerful magician she doesn't hang around to trade cantrips for fireball spells. She gets the heck out of there and tears through the city in a classic "We're meat! We're meat!" panic. I remember a few of those chases.

So does Marina ever use her magic against other magicians? Yes and no. Maybe. Absolutely. I'm not going to tell you. But when you see her take action, suddenly a lot of things fall into place. Magic in this system works because it has a method to it. And that method is classic AD&D "you gotta have the right ingredients".

Well, at least until you get to the Elves. AD&D Elves and Dwarves have never really impressed me. I like Tolkien Elves and Dwarves, but if you're going to play the game you have to live with the system as it was designed. The movie lives up to the system's expectations. You get real AD&D Elves and Dwarves. And Tom Baker as the king of the Elves is a very, very good choice.

Baker's character has to awaken Ridley (Justin Whalin) to the fact that there is a LOT MORE going on than just a game of politics. It's not even about the young empress' altruism. A great deal is at stake. The stakes are high for a world built on magic, and if there is any weakness at all in this part of the story it is that they didn't have the wherewithal to get us into Ridley's mind and show us what he sees.

Marina shows some compassion and strength as she and Ridley slowly break down the social barriers which lie between them, but the real show-stealer has got to be Marlon Wayans. Never in a million years would I have anticipated what he pulls off. All I heard about his character (Snails) all year long were whiny "Why is this comedian in the movie?" complaints. It turns out he is perfect for the role, and for the choices that Snails ends up making. Snails starts out as a classic comedic sidekick, but he pulls off a Sam Gamgee maneuver that left the audience I was sitting with stunned.

There was growth in this character. Heck, there is growth in all three of the major characters. Even one of the villains goes through a little personal growth.

Thora Birch as the young empress is the one person in the ensemble who has the least material to work with. She's got her definite assets, and I'm sure the young male (heck, the old male) audience will appreciate a couple of her scenes just for aesthetic reasons. But if there is a reason to be disappointed in the movie's story-telling then it must lie with the failure to open up the empress' motivations to audience scrutiny. We are told what her goals are early on, and she never diverges from that path.

The one scene where Birch gets to come out of the imperial shell occurs in the climactic battle. Suddenly, a lot of what Profion has said about her is proven true. She is a child who is out of her league. And she realizes that very quickly. It's a redemptive moment which prevents the empress from being a simple cardboard cutout, but one can only hope they'll give her more time to wallow in her flaws in the next film.

Notice that I've said very little about the special effects. Given how much nonsense has been made out of the special effects by people one would expect to know better, I don't see the point in talking about them. They're good. You won't be disappointed. But this isn't a special effects movie. It's a character movie. It's about two characters, really: Ridley and Marina. Marina is a little underdeveloped but when it's time for her to let the shades down and unload on Ridley, Zoe McClellan pulls out all the stops.

There is a lot going on in this movie. Not as much as in "The Phantom Menace" (most people really missed what was going on in that movie because it was so complex), but there are certainly things you have to keep an eye out for if you want to understand everything that is going on. It's definitely the kind of movie you should see at least twice.

If you're looking for (demanding) academy award performances you're not going to find them. But the acting is pretty solid, even if some of the lines the actors have to give are cheesy. There have been far worse movies to hit the wide screen: "Clash of the Titans", "Excalibur", "First Knight". And there have been the real dregs that only a producer's mother could love: "Ironmaster", "Yor: Hunter of the Future", "Warrior Queen", "Gor", "Superman III".

One recent non-reviewer feared that "Dungeons and Dragons" might start a genre of movies. Hey, we could do worse. We could get stuck with SciFi's "Dune".

Fantasy fans have been whining all year long about who is being so unfaithful to the original source. Look, here is something that is not only faithful to its source, it's good. That makes it worth seeing. It would be a shame if all the nay-sayers succeeded in killing this movie. Because when you finally get to see it on video or DvD, you're going to wish you had seen it on the big screen.

--Michael Martinez

"Dungeons and Dragons" is a trademark of Wizards of the Coast. The official movie web site is http://www.seedndmovie.com/.