Dungeons & Dragons (film)



Dungeons & Dragons is a 2000 live-action movie based on the role-playing game (RPG) Dungeons & Dragons (D&D).

Plot
The story concerns the evil wizard Profion (played by noted character actor Jeremy Irons) who attempts to control red dragons with a powerful artifact, and overthrow idealistic young Empress Savina of Izmer, played by Thora Birch. The young heroes destined to stop this cataclysmic event are Marina Pretensa, (Zoe McLellan), an eager but inept apprentice wizard; and Ridley Freeborn and Snails (Justin Whalin and Marlon Wayans), two thieves who quite simply happen to be at the wrong place at the wrong time. They are accompanied on their impromptu quest by the hard-drinking and equinophobic dwarf Elwood Gutworthy, (Lee Arenberg), and the mysterious dark-skinned elven ranger, Norda (Kristen Wilson) sent by Empress Savina first to stop the heroes, but later to assist them. They are pursued along the way by Damodar, (Bruce Payne); Profion's head enforcer, and leader of Izmer's elite fighting unit, the Crimson Brigade. As part of their quest, the heroes are required to recover a magic gemstone from the Master of the Antius City Thief's Guild, Xilus, (played by Richard O'Brien, The Rocky Horror Picture Show's Riff Raff).

Reactions
The movie is generally considered a very poor work by fans of fantasy movies, critics, and much of the general public. The film suffers an abysmal 10% on Rottentomatoes.com and is brutalized on the Internet Movie Database. Reasons for this include the often-amateurish writing, direction, and camerawork of its producer/director, Courtney Solomon, the casting of Marlon Wayans, and a performance often derided as wooden on the part of Thora Birch.

The movie was also not embraced by fans of the original role-playing game. Rather than setting the story in one of several fantasy milieus used in the game, it was set in a completely new setting and did not use any of the familiar stock characters, conflicts, or locales mentioned throughout the original source material. What few Dungeons & Dragons elements it includes are not integral to the plot and, in some cases, fail to match their counterparts in the game; for example, the beholders in the movie do not seem very powerful and show no signs of intelligence - in fact, they are fooled very easily - in sharp contrast to their usual depiction in D&D game products. In the eyes of many fans, this was not so much a Dungeons & Dragons movie as a generic sword and sorcery story with a famous brand name tacked on.

Trivia
The movie featured a cameo appearance of British actor Richard O'Brien in a parody of his game show The Crystal Maze.

Despite the poor box-office showing of the first film, a straight-to-DVD sequel, Dungeons & Dragons 2: Wrath of the Dragon God* was released in 2005. It did not directly continue on the storyline of the previous film, although the character of Damodar (Profion's henchman) makes a return.


 * Previously known under the title "The Elemental Might"