Film Review: Dungeons & Dragons (2000)

It should have been a Hollywood fairy tale coming to life. It started in 1990 when 19-year old Courtney Solomon managed to secure film rights to his favourite past time – Dungeons & Dragons, the most popular of all role playing games and one of the rare which is still being played by millions of people with the help of pen and paper. Solomon has spent next ten years trying to bring the game to the big screen. In 2000, the eponymous fantasy film which he also produced and directed, the ultimate result was notorious flop.

The plot is set in empire of Izmir, where young Empress Savina (played by Thora Birch) has just ascended to the throne. She is trying to reform the Empire and equalise rights of common folk with those of the privileged elite of Mages. This causes displeasure among the latter, which is used by Profion, evil Mage who wants to take power for himself. The only impediment to his plans is sceptre that helps Empress control gold dragons. In order to stop Profion, empress must obtain Rod of Savrille which allows control over even mightier red dragons. At the eve of chaotic civil war search for the Rod will become adventure in which five different characters participate – rogue/thieves Ridley Freeborn (played by Justin Whalin) and Snails (played by Marlon Wayans); young Mage Marina Pretensa (played by Zoe McLellan); dwarf fighter Elwood (played by Lee Arenberg); and elven ranger Norda (played by Kristen Wilson).

While bringing Dungeons & Dragons to the big screen might have looked like the dream to Solomon and game enthusiasts, too many things went wrong during that process. Although Solomon at one time created interests among big studios and figures like legendary producer Joel Silver, in the end he failed to secure budget that was considered proper for project of such ambitions. 36 million US$ were even at that time looking like a rather modest sum for the film that was supposed to be recreate exotic fantasy world with decades in the making. Dungeons & Dragons could have worked even with such conditions, if director was talented enough. Solomon, unfortunately, didn’t bring anything behind camera and didn’t even recognise serious problems with the script by Carroll Cartwright and Topper Lilien, full of cliches and terrible dialogue lines. Another mistake was poor casting. Thora Birch looked disinterested in the role of empress, while Jeremy Irons apparently didn’t take anything in Dungeons & Dragons seriously and instead took it as an excuse to irritating overacting that turned the film into unintentional parody of itself. The only good impression is given by Zoe McLellan and Justin Whalin, the only member of the cast who was D&D enthusiast in real life and brought some of it to screen; Marlon Wayans is acceptable as some sort of comic relief. Forced to use medieval Czech locations for budgetary reasons, Solomon occasionally puts them to good use, just like passable CGI in certain scenes. But even with that, D&D fans would consider the film as typical Hollywood oversimplification and sacrilege of their favourite game, while ordinary viewers would have problems to realise what D&D is really about. Dungeons & Dragons was rejected by audience at the box office and savaged by critics. Despite that, two direct-to-video sequels were made - Dungeons & Dragons: Wrath of the Dragon God in 2005 and Dungeons & Dragons 3: The Book of Vile Darkness in 2012. In 2023 came another, directly unrelated, adaptation under title Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves.

RATING: 3/10 (+)

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